


I Loved Ophelia

by Anno



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga), No. 6 - All Media Types, No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Anal Sex, Angst, Biting, Dirty Talk, Domestic Fluff, First Time, Fluff, M/M, Oral Sex, Politics, Porn With Plot, Smut, Violence, and drama and murder, basically a sequel, canonverse, cranky shion, drama with the geologist, gratuitous Shakespeare references, jealous nezumi, neck kink sort of??, no. 6 needs a sequel tbh, the rats are dead im sorry, torey is a fuckboy, what happens when a tsundere and a yandere fall in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-11-23 13:54:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11403777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anno/pseuds/Anno
Summary: Another reunion story. Nezumi left four years ago, and the city is still recovering, as is Shion. An attempt to address the development of their relationship realistically, and to take advantage of some major drama and plot points Atsuko Asano set up for us. Follows the manga/novels.





	1. Less than kind

**Author's Note:**

> I started this story two years ago, and I've always sort of been planning to move it over here to AO3. Be warned, I'm a slow updater, but I really love this story and want to see it finished. Thank you to everyone who encouraged me on fanfiction.net, and I hope I don't let you down! Even if I haven't updated, I've made so much progress with the outline of this story, and I know I can get it done.
> 
> I'd like to warn you right now of some material I have planned, in case of triggers or sensitivities. Future chapters will contain some graphic violence, possible gore, explicit consensual sex, and very aggressive consensual sex that might make some people uncomfortable. There will also be some incidents similar to panic attacks. I will include chapter-specific warnings as well, so you can either avoid or brace yourselves for certain material. I know things like that have helped me in the past, and while I want to tell a big, dramatic story, I want everyone to be comfortable reading it.
> 
> This story follows the manga and light novels. There is particularly important context in No. 6 Beyond, which you can find translated on Nostalgia on 9th Avenue on Blogspot. If you have only seen the anime and have not read either the manga or novels, I emphatically encourage you to do so. The manga follows the original novels pretty exactly, and it's just a better, fuller experience than the anime.

Tsukiyo died long past his expiration date. Karan cried, and Shion blinked a couple of times. Karan wanted to bury the rat outside the shop. Shion refused, and he took the tiny corpse with him outside the city, wrapped up in a cloth in his coat pocket. He buried him in the hard ground beside the underground room, scratching up earth with hands, nails, and a kitchen spoon. After patting the dirt back over the little grave, Shion sat on the bunker’s stairs in the shade, and he took a deep, slow breath.

Hamlet and Cravat had to be dead by then, too. Shion didn’t suppose Nezumi was sentimental enough to dig graves for them, though; he had probably eaten them right after singing for them, if he hadn’t died first in the harsh, hateful badlands. It occurred to Shion that Safu hadn’t been given a grave, either.

Shion pressed his teeth together and locked his hands. Nezumi was a survivor if he had ever met one, but he was also the freest spirit the earth could produce. His business with No. 6 was done. Alive or not, he was not coming back.

In four years, Shion had settled into a new home and garnered up enough responsibilities to forget about washing dogs with his friend or helping his mother make cherry cake. It was progress for someone, even if it was lonely, and Shion had to stay with it. He had learned new things that Nezumi couldn’t have taught him, had met new people that Nezumi would have kept him from, and, most importantly, had done things that Nezumi would have hated, and had done so without remorse or fear of reprimand.

Nezumi’s name kept an ache in Shion’s chest. He still carried the syllables like a stillborn. Without knowing if the man even still lived or if he had died years ago, there was little Shion could do to grieve. His memories of him scattered, and the pain associated started to wash out of his skin. Nezumi had been instrumental in his life. He had come into his room and changed everything, made himself important, burned briefly and so, so brightly, and then he had vanished. He’d had his exits and his entrances, played his many parts, and shuffled off into purgatory, leaving Tsukiyo to die without his master.

“The winds sweep away souls,” Shion mumbled. The stair steps pressed against his skeleton and left sand on his pants. “People steal away hearts.”

Tsukiyo lay in the ground behind him, and Shion coughed the dust from his throat and glanced back at the disturbed earth.

He stood, dusted himself off, and walked back home.

Home was different from where he had grown up. The new Chronos had undergone renovations, turning a few of the old buildings into complexes or apartments, or fixing annexes to make dormitories or school rooms. Shion’s home was a second floor apartment with a new kitchen and refurbished communication system. It was clean, comfortable, and removed, even considering the downstairs office and that the other apartments belonged to more of his coworkers. It was dark by the time he returned, even though he neglected to report back to the bakery. Finding the door unlocked still startled him, but he took a deep breath of Chronos’ clean garden air, the scents of flowers, sandpaper and construction, and fresh paint, and he pushed the door open with a smile.

“I let myself in,” Torey crowed from the dining table. He looked like he had been waiting in position for one dramatic moment, only opening a bottle of wine once Shion appeared in the doorway. The loud pop stuck to the walls of the small place, and Shion chuckled in surprise.

“What’s this?”

“You gave me a key. I used it.” Torey grinned and set the wine down to let it breathe. “We’ve been working hard. _You’ve_ been working hard. I wanted to celebrate the education bill. Where have you been all afternoon?”

Shion shrugged, moving out of his coat and setting it on a hook by the door. “West Block. I guess I missed it.”

“Yeah, well, we missed you over here,” Torey started, his smile beginning to falter. “What happened to your hands? Did you get in a fight?”

Shaking his head, Shion went to the sink to wash the dirt off of his scraped fingers, and to put away the dirty spoon from his pocket into the drying rack. “No. It’s nothing, Torey. I’m glad you’re here.” Tsukiyo hadn’t belonged to Torey, and Shion doubted that his friend would understand. Torey was too much a politician.

“Me too. Oh, and your window was already open. I just left it like that, since I assume you want wild animals to come in and steal your things.”

“It’s a nice night.” Shion laughed it off and changed the subject. “We weren’t the only people working on education reform. Did you invite anyone else?”

“No.” Torey’s smile came with some humility that time. The expression was even cute, Shion thought; Torey had the right kind of jawline, and his blonde hair was cut straight to reach his shoulders, half of it usually pulled back in some kind of careless tail. His features weren’t as delicate, and his sense of humor wasn’t as caustic, but his blue eyes were almost greyish and pale enough. “I wanted to celebrate with you. I mean, this bill was your baby, emphasizing pre-Babylon Convention history in the school curriculums, after the original No. 6 dumbed it down and restricted so much. You were really excited about the art and literature bit, so…”

Torey reached down to something hidden under the table, and Shion frowned. His heartbeat only spiked when Torey presented a small, neatly wrapped package to him.

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” Shion stammered, so Torey grinned and stepped forward.

“I wanted to. Please, can you just accept a gift?”

Fighting a blush and admitting a laugh, Shion took the package and coaxed the tape open, unfolding the paper. When he held a book in his hands, he stared at the cover and bit his lip.

“ _Leaves of Grass_ , by Walt Whitman?” he breathed.

Torey shrugged and smiled, like it was nothing. “He was from way west, but he wasn’t bad.” Not bad? Shion skimmed the first pages, unable to smile without raising heat to his eyes. In the quiet, Torey swallowed. “I had it sent in from No. 2. Do you like it?”

“It’s perfect,” Shion mumbled. It wasn’t Shakespearian by any stretch, the ideas too immediate and the language too simple and direct, but it was real. These were thoughts a man had put down over the course of his life. “Are you the new person drawn toward me?”

“Huh?” Torey’s posture straightened.

“It’s… The poem,” Shion hurried to explain. He had skipped ahead and stopped on a page that caught his eye, the preceding poem of more morbid interest to him. “To begin with, take warning; I am surely far different from what you suppose,” he recited.

Torey lifted an eyebrow and smiled. “So you like it.” He took another step forward, and Shion held the book of poetry closer to his chest. “What if I am ‘drawn to you’?”

The young men had spent four years together rebuilding the city. Torey was only a couple of years older than him, and he had made no secret of his admiration, even if he kept it respectful. Shion’s lungs shrank in his ribs, but he mumbled the next lines. “Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal? Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?”

“Not easy,” Torey replied to Whitman, and he stopped barely a foot from Shion. When the younger man kept his eyes on the pages, Torey brushed his fingertips up Shion’s hand. “Worthwhile.”

Shion refused to start shaking, but his veins had been shot through with chills. This wasn’t excitement so much as nausea. “Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy’d satisfaction?” he whispered. “Do you think I am trusty and faithful?”

“Yes, I do,” Torey answered softly. He brought up a hand, cupping Shion’s jaw in his fingers. Someone more theatrical would have taken just his chin.

Shion pinched his eyes shut and forced his breathing to steady, even when Torey guided the book out of his hands.

“Do you see no further than this façade,” he choked, looking up into the wrong color of Torey’s eyes, “this smooth and tolerant manner of me?”

“What, did you memorize it already?” Torey chuckled, leaving the book on the table. When Shion’s brow twitched inward and he gave no reply, Torey frowned. “Wait, had you read it before?”

Shion bit his tongue and bore forward. “Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man?” he finished flatly. “Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?”

Torey’s face was a cold, stoic wall. Then, he broke into a smile. “I love when you surprise me.”

Shion didn’t even want to smile back at him. Preoccupied with the turning in his stomach, he glanced away. Even when Torey leaned in and kissed him, Shion didn’t look away from the book on the table. He gave a half-hearted, token pucker of his lips and put a hand on Torey’s chest, signaling him to stop.

Torey stood up straight and bit his cheek. “What’s wrong?”

“I just…can’t,” Shion tried to explain. “Not tonight. Not right now.”

“Did I do something wrong?” Torey pressed, frowning.

“No! No, you were fine,” Shion assured him, adding to the awkward, softly scrambling conversation. “I love the book. This was really thoughtful. Today’s just a bad day.”

After Torey had brought over wine and poetry? It didn’t have to be a bad day, Torey’s sulking face wrote out. Nevertheless, the politician pulled away and folded his arms. A similar situation by a waterway four years ago came to mind, and Shion almost burst into tearful laughter.

“I guess I should go, then?” Torey stated.

“That… I’m sorry,” Shion mumbled. “There’s a lot on my mind.”

“It’s alright, Shion. Don’t make excuses.” Torey put on a smile and his coat. “Just let me know when you’re feeling better, alright? I don’t want to pressure you.”

Liar. Shion smiled back and hugged himself. “Okay. Do you want me to walk you back?”

“I’m literally just upstairs, Shion,” Torey laughed. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay. Thank you so much, Torey.”

After saying their goodnights, after Shion heard Torey’s footsteps head back upstairs outside his room, Shion locked the door. Idiot, having given him a key. Yes, he liked Torey. Yes, he knew the man was likely to stay in the city, with him, with a future. He had known him for four years, more than eight times as long as he had spent with…someone else, but that was just it. Torey had been with him eight times as long and hadn’t left a tenth of the impression. No matter how badly he wanted to move on, Shion couldn’t fairly be with someone else while he was still leaving the window open at night.

“What, no goodnight kiss?” the window asked.

Shion’s hand clenched on the doorknob while he remembered how to breathe.

The world stopped to reassert itself; reality stooped down to pick up its pieces, apologizing and embarrassed.

It had been bad enough when he had recognized him the first time, in the middle of nowhere, laying siege to a Public Security Bureau car. Then, with his voice coming directly from his open window, Shion was too afraid to move. If he wasn’t really there, if Shion was just imagining it, he could at least stay frozen at the door, with his eyes shut, and pretend for a minute longer.

The voice came again, a derisive snort, more concrete and clear in Shion’s ears. “I’m so terribly sorry. I didn’t interrupt anything, did I? I just heard there was a Whitman reading.”

“You were watching?” Shion snapped out. In hindsight, those were not the words he wanted to use to welcome Nezumi back. Gripping the locked doorknob, he listened to a pair of boots crest his floor and the weighted tap of his window sliding shut.

“Oh, right. I wasn’t supposed to know about him,” Nezumi growled back. “I was going to leave if you two started going at it. I’m not a voyeur.”

“Well, thank God that you almost left _again_.”

Nezumi fell quiet, and Shion managed to regain feeling in his feet. He turned, his back against the door, and watched the man explore his dining room.

His clothes had needed replacing, though the scarf stayed. His hair had strayed longer, with the messy bun behind his head a little fuller than before. His face and hands had been tanned under the sun, and his cheekbones seemed a degree sharper, more adult. His shoulders were broader, and he looked more muscular and better fed, though he sacrificed none of his dancer-like grace. This was him. This was his voice, just a touch deeper and rougher. Those were his eyes, more irritable than before. This was his dark, confident presence. Nezumi picked up the bottle of wine Torey had left on the table, tasted it, and grimaced.

“Young enough to be grape juice,” he mumbled. He set the bottle back down and looked across the room to Shion. “I did like your reading, though. Comically appropriate. That wasn’t the first time you two kissed, was it?”

“What about it?” Shion growled. “Was I supposed to wait here, alone, on the off-chance you got bored enough to come wandering back and visit for a few weeks?”

“I told you I would come back.”

“When? ‘Reunion will come’? In a year, when we’re eighty, when we’re both dead? And even if you came back, were you going to stay, or would you just leave me again?” Both of their voices had risen, and the tears Shion had been holding in all day made themselves known. He bristled when Nezumi started toward him. “You can’t just put me on hold for when you decide you want me.”

“So why didn’t you kiss pretty boy back?” Nezumi scoffed. His hands closed around Shion’s biceps, holding him against the door. It was a casual power he wielded, firm and cold, and Shion held off on fighting back. Instead, he leaned back against the door willingly and looked Nezumi in the face.

“Because I couldn’t stop thinking about whether you were alive or dead.”

His pride wanted him to stay angry, but he had to stare. That was the beautiful, smooth jaw, the sharp nose, the dark-framed, silvery eyes. Shion took some pleasure in watching the turmoil there, waiting for Nezumi to decide how to respond. The pale grey eyes flickered down, resting on Shion’s mouth for a second.

“When I heard at the close of the day,” Nezumi muttered, and Shion picked up quickly. If tonight was Whitman, they would make it Whitman.

“…how my name had been receiv’d with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that follow’d.”

“And else,” Nezumi whispered, his voice growing hoarse, “when I carous’d, or when my plans were accomplish’d, still I was not happy. But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refresh’d, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn.”

“When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light.”

“When I wander’d alone over the beach, and undressing, bathed, laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise.”

Shion was crying in earnest, shudders running through him and some of his words dulled by salt, but he continued. He could not say how many times he had sat alone in the underground room, reading this exact poem and holding himself, rocking back and forth until it didn’t hurt quite so bad.

“And when I thought how my dear friend,” Shion recited, a soft, embarrassed laugh in his weeping, “my lover, was on his way coming, O then I was happy.”

“O then each breath tasted sweeter,” Nezumi crooned. His hands loosened on Shion’s arms, and they dragged up his shirt to brush tears off of his neck. The calluses on his fingertips drew a shiver out of him. “And all that day my food nourish’d me more – and the beautiful day pass’d well.”

“And the next came with equal joy,” Shion tried to enunciate, but he had to hold onto Nezumi’s sleeves. “And with the next, at evening, came my friend.”

“And that night,” Nezumi whispered, caressing the skin under Shion’s eyes, “while all was still, I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores. I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands, as directed to me, whispering, to congratulate me.”

“For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night.” Shion’s fingers dug into the worn leather of Nezumi’s jacket.

“In the stillness,” Nezumi breathed, “in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined toward me.” His thumb traced under Shion’s lip, and his index finger hooked under his chin. “And his arm lay lightly around my breast.”

“And that night I was happy.”

The recitation was over. Nothing so mentally effortless for Shion should have been so emotionally exhausting. He had never hated Whitman so much.

The corners of Shion’s lips curled up. His arms wrapped themselves around Nezumi’s shoulders, and he heard a soft catch in his breath. Nezumi swallowed, and he took the smallest step forward, pressing their bodies together against the door. His lips looked chapped, and Shion wanted his teeth on them.

“You have to stay,” he told Nezumi, a thick whisper.

Those words broke the spell. Nezumi blinked, a shutter of fear in his eyes, and he released him, stepping back again. The same fear bubbled up in Shion’s marrow, and he reached for Nezumi to keep him from slipping away.

“Please. Please, don’t leave me again.”

Nezumi’s vulnerable posture hardened, and he crossed his arms. “What about Terry?” Shion didn’t bother to correct him. He got the feeling that Nezumi had missed the name on purpose. “I didn’t come here to steal you away, Shion. I’m not here for kisses.”

“Then what was-?” Aghast, Shion glared at Nezumi and reached for his leather sleeve. Nezumi flinched further away. “After that, you’re going to ruin this?”

“If a guy brings you bad wine and the deathbed edition of _Leaves of Grass_ and you turn him down, I can ruin this,” Nezumi snorted. “I came here to warn you, in any case. Not to break up your happy relationship.”

Warn him? Shion attacked the subject that mattered the most. “It’s not a relationship. He’s kissed me a few times, but we’ve never…”

“Been on a date?” Nezumi offered dryly.

“No,” Shion agreed, mumbling.

“So you’re leading him on. I’m not going to get in the way of something so special.” Nezumi flicked his wrist, and he went back to the table for the bad wine. “Did that part about warning you alarm you at all, or are you still that much of an airhead?”

“I deal with crises every day at work. I’m not used to seeing you.”

“So, your first priority is to tie me up here, instead of taking care of your shiny new city? I can’t say that’s admirable, Shion.” Nezumi didn’t even hint at a smile, leaning against the table and drinking straight from the bottle.

Shion scoffed through his nose, and he fixed a lock of hair that Nezumi had put out of place and wiped some of the burning tears off of his cheeks. What had he told him? That the world meant nothing without him? Shion had thought he’d made that clear.

“Fine, O alarming one. If thou art privy to thy country’s fate, which happily foreknowing may avoid, O speak.”

“Nice delivery, Horatio.” Nezumi chewed on a sigh and finally took a seat. “I met someone a few months ago. Not the same ‘met someone’ as you did, though. This guy was older, too crazy even for my taste. He found me in an oasis and started asking me questions about where I came from, if I knew about No. 6, if I knew the person in charge. Oh, stop looking at me with those cow eyes. I’m trying to tell you something important.”

Shion clenched his jaw and fixed his eyes on the tile floor. “I’m listening.”

“Anyway.” Nezumi leaned his elbows on his knees while he spoke, lacking the usual dramatic flourish. “He let me in on a little secret. He used to be a geologist here. I don’t know if he’s just crazy or not, but he had a small piece of gold, and he told me he got it from under the city. He claimed that there was a huge amount of it, ready to be mined, and that he thought there were other metals nearby, too. The rare stuff. Zirconium, indium, something like that.

“At first, I wrote him off as just some lunatic who was going to end up killing himself in a mine collapse. But…” Nezumi frowned at his hands and worked his tongue in his mouth, avoiding certain words and emphasizing others. “When I got back here, I had to go check the place he’d specified, close to where you let the cave refugees settle to the north. Had a hell of a time avoiding them, by the way. But I found where someone had been digging, following an old cliff-side. I didn’t find anyone there, but the digging was all recent, no sign of accidents. I think he had a few people in on the job, and they found what they were looking for.”

Shion caught a rock that Nezumi tossed to him. It didn’t shine brightly, dirty and unprocessed as it was, but it was gold. He thumbed over it, blinking.

“So a crazy old man comes to dig up gold under the Land of Mao, so you travel all the way back here?” Shion sorted through that.

“It wasn’t just…” Nezumi hissed through his teeth and sat up straight. “It was his intention, alright? He went off talking about how power stems from wealth, and how he wanted to kick No. 6 back down. He had a resource, so he wanted to use it and play with the holy city, now that the chaos gave him an opportunity.”

“How long ago was this? You just got here, but he’s already made progress digging a mine.”

“Four or five months. He took a horse, okay? I wasn’t sure I should even come back, but I got here as fast as I could. I’m not as fast as a horse, Shion.”

“Don’t be so defensive,” Shion snorted. “When did you arrive?”

Nezumi held his expression, but chewed his cheek. “A week ago,” he admitted with a cold shrug. “I wanted to make sure I wasn’t just shouting conspiracy theories before I told you this stuff.”

“Where were you even staying?” Shion frowned against the lump in his throat. “Did you see Mom, or Inukashi? Does anyone else know you’re back?”

“One question at a time, moron. No, no one else knows I’m here.” Nezumi took a deep breath and another sip of wine, grimacing. “I went back ho-- hideout. I went back to the room. I’m surprised it’s still intact. Getting moldy, though. You should really air it out, if you keep visiting.”

“You saw me earlier today,” Shion realized numbly, and Nezumi nodded.

“You didn’t finish singing.” He turned the bottle in his hands, watching the light play off the rim. “Was that Tsukiyo, in the hole you so foolishly dug with your hands?” Shion nodded. “Yeah, well. The other two kicked it a long time before he did. Good for him.”

“You missed him by a few hours,” Shion mumbled. “If you had just knocked on the door…”

“What, you’re mad at me for not visiting the rat you named? Were you there when he died?”

Karan had called him that morning to tell him that Tsukiyo had passed away in his sleep. Shion had stopped by to pay respects and pick him up for the burial service. Shion’s face said as much, and Nezumi responded with a derisive huff.

“Hypocrite. Now, are you going to scold me for not coming to a rat’s funeral, or are you going to focus on why I’m actually here?”

“Even though you’re being a bastard?” Shion grumbled. “So, the deranged geologist. Aside from trespassing and taking advantage of our current lack of mining regulations, I don’t understand why you ran all this way to warn me. You’re even late for that, considering he’s already started digging.”

“I was worried. And if he has other people working on this with him, since it isn’t exactly a one-man job, we don’t know who else might know about it,” Nezumi defended more softly. “He could damage the land that’s already been scarred so badly, get people killed in the tunnels, maybe even buy out a few of your coworkers with the new resource. It looks like he took a lot of gold, Shion. That by itself is going to unsettle the market, especially if he’s buying support from the other cities.”

“I appreciate you telling me,” Shion said coldly, still wiping tears off of his lashes, “but this all seems too petty to interest you. I thought you didn’t care about politics.”

“Oh, I care plenty about politics,” Nezumi snorted. “Sorry if I was worried about you, your Highness.” The thought of Nezumi being concerned about him created a thrill in Shion’s chest, which he smothered quickly.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” Shion stated, each syllable clean and careful like in a speech, “and I can’t imagine you care about the people of the city. But I’ll look into it. Even if we can’t punish someone for unregulated mining, since we haven’t written the laws yet, the Land of Mao is a protected settlement. I’m sure I can find some small-print to charge our crazed geologist with something.”

He would not feel overwhelmed in his own home. Shion drew a deep, slow breath and strode into his kitchen to pour himself a glass of water.

“Are you going back to the room tonight?” he asked, toneless. “It’s a long walk, and it’s already late.”

Nezumi replied with a sour smile. “I can’t tell if you’re kicking me out or offering to let me stay.”

“I can’t, either,” Shion admitted quietly.

“Tony’s not coming back tonight, is he?”

“I don’t think so.”

Nezumi considered his words, drawing on a flat expression. “Then he wouldn’t mind if I sleep on the couch, right? I don’t think I can sleep in that musty old room one more time.”

The mustiness was just fine when it was the two of them. Shion swallowed another ache and nodded. “Go ahead.”

With a gracious smile that belonged in the theater, Nezumi had the gall to step forward and trace his fingers down the back of Shion’s hand where he held his glass of water. “Thank you, kind host. To avoid dirtying your furniture, would it please you if I took a shower first?”

“Go. Ahead,” Shion repeated through his teeth.

Nezumi dropped the attempted playfulness, and he turned away and disappeared into the bathroom. Shion stood still in the kitchen with one hip pressed against the counter, and he sipped at his water to try and keep his stomach from raging.

They spent the night in separate rooms. Shion locked his bedroom door, but he fell asleep facing the window.


	2. There's rosemary

The curtains were still open, and the east-facing window woke Nezumi early. He squinted in the dusty, just-before-dawn suggestion of light and belatedly noticed Shion’s head resting on the side of the couch.

Nezumi sat up, careful not to wake him, and chewed on a half-grin. His poor host hadn’t even closed his bedroom door on his way into the living room. Evidently, Shion had simply walked out of his room, sat down on the floor, and fallen asleep against the couch sometime during the night. When Nezumi got up, he draped his blanket over Shion’s shoulders.

He stretched, appreciating a decent night’s rest, and set to work. He left his hair down, letting it reach down past his shoulders, but he helped himself to one of Shion’s sweaters and started up the coffee machine. A press would have been better, but hey, if Shion liked his coffee soulless, Nezumi wasn’t going to complain.

In the peace and the morning light, he got a chance to take in the clean, nearly sterile angles of the apartment. The living room was hardly separate from the kitchen, only the counter drawing the line between them, and there was hardly any decoration – no photographs standing up, no flowers on the simple, circular table near the window. It was quiet, dead, and grossly unlike the Shion he had expected to find. Nezumi turned his eyes away from the empty efficiency of the space, and he watched the coffee brew. When he noticed Shion beginning to stir, he returned to the couch with two full mugs, sitting down on the floor with him.

“Good morning, your Highness,” Nezumi purred. “Sleeping like that’ll hurt your neck.”

Shion still had shadows in his eyes, but he blinked through them and accepted the mug Nezumi offered. The buttons of his shirt were all in place, but the collar was rumpled. Shion cleared his throat and thanked his guest, looking down at the dark surface of his drink.

“We didn’t end last night on a good note,” Shion mumbled.

Did Shion need an excuse to want to sleep next to him? Nezumi narrowed his eyes and measured the other man’s apologetic posture, but he quickly smiled and reached forward to tug Shion’s collar into place.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. “We can make up for it tonight.”

He couldn’t have resisted. That little shit Torey had been kissing Shion, and hell if Nezumi was going to let that go unavenged. How he had survived four years without seeing Shion blush, he would never know. Shion gaped and didn’t respond immediately, so Nezumi continued, crooning closer to his jaw.

“You don’t have plans with that other guy, do you? Let’s ditch him.”

“I…” Nezumi could feel Shion swallow, and it made the corners of his lips curl up. Shion coughed and adjusted his hold on his coffee mug. “I have a video meeting with the leaders of No. 3 tonight at eight.”

“Really? That’s how you’re turning me down?” Nezumi chuckled and released the poor boy’s shirt, deciding that he had teased him enough. “Your loss. I’m still waiting for my ‘welcome home’ kiss.”

“Maybe later, when we actually go home,” Shion groused back, and he looked down to seek security in his coffee mug.

Nezumi merely winked. He shifted over to sit next to Shion with their backs against the couch. “But what’s this about you having a meeting with world leaders? What are you, mayor?”

“My title is ‘committee member’,” Shion explained. “We don’t have a mayor anymore.”

“Wait, seriously?” Nezumi blinked, feeling a tangle of pride and revulsion.

“We have the Restructural Committee, comprising twelve committee members, and each of those leads a sub-committee.”

Nezumi hummed and took another sip of coffee. “Fancy. And in four years, no one’s figured out mining regulations?”

Shion started to defend himself, but his voice choked to silence when someone knocked on the door.

“Shion?” Torey’s voice called through the door. “Are you up?” When Shion threw an uncomfortable glance at Nezumi, he just shrugged and continued to drink his coffee.

“Be nice,” Shion pleaded softly, and he stood up. Nezumi followed his host to the door, and Shion answered it with a tempered smile. “Good morning, Torey. I’m almost ready to go.”

Go where? To work, right? Nezumi bit back the question, though, and when the door opened widely enough to reveal Torey in all of his clean-cut, well-dressed glory, he grinned crookedly.

“Mornin’,” Nezumi cut in, demanding to be noticed right off. “I didn’t know we’d have visitors. I’d have made more coffee.”

Torey’s face wiped clean of any reaction, and he stared at Nezumi for a lifeless moment. Nezumi watched the politician’s eyes flicker over the coffee mug, the messy hair, Shion’s sweater on a stranger’s shoulders, before the blonde finally put on a smile.

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of imposing,” Torey replied, leaning on that last word with false manners. “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure…?”

And you never will, Nezumi almost snapped back. Shion stepped in.

“Torey, this is my dear friend, Nezumi. Nezumi, this is my fellow committee member, Torey.” Nezumi could practically _hear_ Shion sweating. Let him sweat.

“Ah, that’s right! Nezumi!” Torey chirped, widening that fake smile. He wasn’t an actor, Nezumi thought; he was a fucking robot. “Your childhood friend? The hero of the city, who sang on top of the Moondrop? I wasn’t sure I would ever get to meet you, Nezumi. I’d heard that you’d left the city behind indefinitely.”

Shion was still, but Nezumi felt the other boy’s heart flinch. He bared his teeth back at Torey, feigning amity.

“I couldn’t stay away,” Nezumi crooned. “I got in last night. The wine was great, by the way. It would have aged nicely.” He winced when Shion stepped on his foot.

Torey didn’t miss a beat. “Welcome back, then. There’s an extra room upstairs, so you don’t have to sleep on the couch again,” he offered sweetly, glancing over Nezumi’s shoulder. The couch across the room still had a pillow and blankets draped over it.

“No, thanks. If you sent me upstairs, I’d just get lonely and come back through the window. Besides, I don’t mind it. Shion and I are used to sharing a bed.” Nezumi returned the sugary smile.

“That’s enough,” Shion snapped. His face wasn’t bashful this time; it was pale, mortified and angry. “We have to go to work. Nezumi came here to tell me something concerning destructive activities in the Land of Mao, and I’d like to inform the other members.”

Oh, _now_ he was interested in that? Nezumi’s stomach twisted up, but he kept up his smile. “Perfect. Should I come with you, or do you prefer me as a homemaker?”

Torey didn’t seem to like either idea. “I heard you were an actor. We’ve opened a new theater a few blocks down, if you wanted to stop by. They’re holding auditions for _Romeo and Juliet_.”

“I play a mean Nurse,” Nezumi answered dryly. “You wouldn’t be bad yourself, Tommy. Say the right lines and you could fall in love with anyone.”

“Nezumi,” Shion growled. “Go to the theater. I’ll be home late tonight, so don’t bother waiting up.”

Shion’s cold rage was even worse than Torey’s smug, silent glee. Once he recovered from a moment of vertigo, Nezumi left his coffee on the counter, grabbed his coat and shoes, and walked out ahead of them, pushing past Torey on the way.

 

Kicking his shoes on as he walked was more difficult and embarrassing than Nezumi would have guessed, but hell if he was going to stop after he marched out of the apartment complex that dramatically. His right shoe was loose on his heel, and the left was carried in his hand, defiant and ridiculous. He worked his way out of the new Chronos as quickly as possible, storming past construction and temporary fences, and ignored the few glances he garnered from passersby. He only paused to lean against a brick wall and pull his shoes on once he had stepped into an older district. Shion and Torey were half a mile away, being _together_ , and that made cooling down a slow, arduous process for Nezumi.  So he’d been a little territorial and gauche, and so he hadn’t made a great first impression. So what? Torey would eventually leave, and Shion would forgive him.

What if he had just kissed Shion last night instead of pulling away?

Out of habit, Nezumi bit back a sigh. He knew that he _wanted_ Shion to want him to stay, so why was it so hard to hear it and acquiesce? Stupid Walt Whitman. Nezumi was fine when he was reciting something, but take away his script, and he was a defensive, contradictory, emotional wreck. So he blamed poetry for only having half the answers.

“Damn, did he kick you out so fast you couldn’t even put on your shoes? Can’t say I blame him.”

Nezumi’s head jerked back up when he recognized the voice, and he fought against a relieved grin.

“Hey, asshole,” Nezumi chuckled. “The years have been kind to you.”

Inukashi was still surrounded by dogs, plus a puppy. Little Shionn held tight to his parent’s hand, well-fed, bright-eyed, and working up to his fifth year, and he stomped on the sidewalk even when Inukashi had stopped walking. Inukashi himself had grown, his dark hair longer and wilder, but he was at least a smidge cleaner and less scrawny. His chest was still flat, but his hips and thighs had started to fill out.

“Momma, who’s that?” Shionn barked, tugging on Inukashi’s fingers. The dog-keeper picked the copper-haired child up and held him on his hip, still smirking at his old acquaintance.

“This is a sad little man named Nezumi. Say hi, Shionn.” Shionn shouted a greeting to the sad little man and waved. “Seriously, though. What are you doing back, and why isn’t that airhead here to sigh and moon over you?”

The full weight of how alone Nezumi was finally hit him. He cleared his throat and finished putting on his left shoe, and then took his coat off of his arm. He was still wearing Shion’s sweater, and he didn’t want to wear too many layers in the warm autumn, so he wound up staring at the extra garment.

“Don’t strain yourself,” Inukashi snorted. “Come on. What happened? Momma Karan will want to see you. Let’s go get lunch.”

Karan. Would she agree with Shion? She probably resented Nezumi for abandoning him. Worse, she probably just adored Torey.

And Nezumi had met the man she had married. Shion’s father was out there somewhere, and he couldn’t tell her that. He hadn’t been able to tell Shion that last night. His tongue froze under all of this, and Inukashi lifted a brow.

“What’s the hold up? You didn’t sleep with him, did you?” Inukashi chortled.

“No, nothing like that,” Nezumi choked. “Shit, Inukashi, you’d say this in front of your kid?”

“I can handle it,” Shionn piped up. “Momma Karan says I’m really mature.”

Inukashi broke into a moment of giggles. “You’re a nut,” he told his son, and then looked back up to Nezumi. “Sheltering him doesn’t help. He’s too quick – a lot like your boyfriend.”

“My boyfriend, huh?” Nezumi’s jaw set. “So did you know about Torey?”

Inukashi’s face sobered. “Oh, great. You met him? That explains everything.” He set Shionn back down to let him play and chat with the dogs. “You _really_ want to talk to Karan, then.”

 

The bakery hadn’t changed. The paint on the back door was still peeling, the air still smelled warm and sweet, and old man Rikiga was still at the counter, trying his damnedest to pull his foot out of his mouth and recommend himself to the owner of the place. The man was devoted, at least on the surface – Nezumi had to give him that.

“I swear, Karan, I never agreed to marry her. She chased after me. It was all I could do to get her off my back.”

Karan indulged him with a smile, but she remained unmoved on the matter. “What an ordeal. I’m glad it worked out in the end. And…what does this have to do with your printing company?” Rikiga’s face, barely more sober than the last time Nezumi had seen it, flushed and started to panic. Nezumi was content to stay back and let the man flounder, but Inukashi had to cut in.

“It’s never going to happen, old man,” the dog-keeper snorted. “Stop taking advantage of Momma Karan’s patience.”

As soon as Inukashi spoke, the baker and the businessman looked up from their awkward conversation and saw the man standing behind him. Rikiga shouted in horror, starting to recoil, and Karan clasped a hand over her own mouth. Nezumi had only been acquainted with Shion’s mother for a few days, but she recognized him immediately, even after four years. That realization dug into him when she stared at him.

“Nezumi,” Karan started, stepping forward. She didn’t bother to disguise the tears beginning to sprout, and she smiled uninhibitedly. “You’re back? When did you…?”

“Last week,” Nezumi admitted, even when he tried to lie. “I’ve been in West Block.” When Karan pulled him into a hug, he lifted his arms and returned the gesture with some trepidation. Karan was too strong for this world; the bakery was running better than ever, and he could tell that she had kept everyone else together through sheer force of will, but it was beginning to wear on her. Her eyes were shadowed, she had gained some weight, and her breath came in tepid sighs. Her hair didn’t need dyeing yet – only a few grey strands, nothing terrible – but Nezumi could still feel cracks beneath her surface. He swallowed and hugged her fully. “You look great, Karan.”

“Don’t get sweet already, Eve,” Rikiga grumbled. “Just because you saved the city doesn’t mean you get a parade when you come back.” Nezumi just smiled at him over Karan’s shoulder and, with his hand out of Karan’s line of sight, flipped up his middle finger.

“Good to see you, too, old man,” Nezumi crooned. “Now, when she said ‘printing company’, she doesn’t mean the same porn mag, right?”

Rikiga bristled. It was too easy. “ _I never_ —”

“I can call bullshit before you even speak. Just take a break,” Nezumi advised him. When he pulled back to look at Karan, though, his confidence faded. “I…”

“You saw Shion already?” she guessed. His jaw shut, and he nodded. A moment of silence made his lungs tighten. “It…didn’t go well?” He shook his head.

“He met Torey,” Inukashi sighed, taking Shionn to the counter to pick out a cookie.

“What happened?” Karan demanded. Leave it to her to put her foot down and untangle this mess. He really did love that about her. However, being out of the loop – even if it was self-inflicted – brought up his defenses.

“I don’t like his influence on Shion,” Nezumi mumbled, picking his words.

Rikiga was the only one who laughed. He quieted down abruptly.

“What influence?” Karan asked, her voice diplomatic again.

“He’s so fake.”

“Says the actor,” Rikiga mumbled.

“He’s, um.” Nezumi bit his cheek and frowned at the wall to his left, shrinking under the scrutiny. Talking was so much easier when he was playing a role. “I _know_ he’s taking advantage of him somehow. Shion couldn’t get rid of me fast enough this morning. Torey and I didn’t exactly get along, but…”

“Of course you picked a fight,” Inukashi chirruped, wearing that smug grin. “Can’t blame you, though. I don’t like him either.”

Rikiga had to butt in again. “That’s because you have poor taste. Torey’s a respectable young man with a good position, and he was here for Shion the whole time after Eve dumped him.”

A sick, aching chill seeped into Nezumi’s body. His only options were to attack the old man in front of Shion’s mother or to stand quietly and take it, so he sucked in a breath and fixed his eyes on the wall.

Karan squeezed Nezumi’s arm before she quietly turned around and smiled at Rikiga. “I’d like to talk to them alone for a few minutes. Would you mind?” If Nezumi had adored this woman before, he worshipped her then. She didn’t bat her eyelashes or ask some bullshit favor (Could you go pick up some flour for me?) to get rid of him. She just asked him to leave with no decoration.

Rikiga processed that for a couple of seconds, grimaced a smile, and nodded. “Sure. Of course. Just let me know if they give you any trouble, okay?”

“I appreciate your concern.” Karan kept up her smile and opened the door for him, and Rikiga hurried out with Inukashi snickering at his back. As soon as the shop door closed, Karan dropped the smile like a weight, showing the raw concern she had been carrying all of her son’s life.

“I’m so sorry, Nezumi. I couldn’t be happier to have you back. Shion needs you. He’s been…withdrawn.”

Nezumi already knew that it was his fault. He took a second to swallow that pill, and he put his hands back into his pockets.

“How so? Has he been like that for…a while?”

“Yes, Nezumi. He’s been like that since you left,” Inukashi grumbled, keeping Shionn’s hands out of the cookie display.

Karan didn’t deny it. She sighed and took a seat at a small table in the corner. The store was empty but for the four of them, so she was able to take something of a break. When she gestured an invitation, Nezumi sat down across from her.

“He was like this after we moved out of Chronos,” Karan barely more than whispered. “He would forget to eat. He wouldn’t notice when someone called for him. Whenever he talked, it was about work, or he was muttering your name.” She managed a shaky smile. “For a while, I thought he just really wanted a pet rat.”

Nezumi shook his head in disbelief. “Karan, how do you not hate me when I did this to your son?”

“I hate the fact that my son is heartbroken. But you’re the one who saved him, and whether he’s angry at you now or not, you’re the most important person in the world to him.” Karan’s smile turned bittersweet. “And when you left, he didn’t understand, but I did. If you can’t stay, don’t stay.”

She was talking about her husband. The nausea came back when Nezumi realized it: he was just a repeat of Shion’s shitty father. His voice came out hoarse.

“I don’t want to do this to him anymore.”

Karan’s eyes filled with fresh tears, and Inukashi had the good sense not to comment.

“Keep that in mind,” Karan bade him. She took a deep breath and put on another smile, as genuine as she could make it. “You’ll always have a home here. I know you won’t decide to stay or go lightly, but remember that you’re loved.”

Was this what ‘unconditional’ meant? Nezumi nodded, his mouth dry.

After another moment without eye contact, Karan started again, trying not to look as exhausted as before. “As for Torey… Shion met Torey a couple of weeks after you left. The two of them were the city’s youngest to be nominated for the Restructural Committee. Both of them were part of the elite program, and both of them saw the damage that the original No. 6 did. I don’t know everything that’s been going on between them. Shion barely comes home anymore, and he keeps it short when I call him. He even moved out so he could focus on work. And I’m proud of him, but I don’t want that…” She cleared her throat politely. “I don’t want Torey to be his only line of support. Torey has been polite, but he’s… He feels wrong. I knew people like him when No. 6 was starting out. They were idealistic, passionate, but then they broke.”

All they had to go on was bad vibes. Nezumi had been hoping for something really incriminating to show Shion and disgrace that pasty little pretender, but Torey was just a nice kid who rubbed a couple of people the wrong way.

“I came back to help him,” Nezumi stated, watching the mid-morning light on the table. “So I’m going to help him.” He laughed under his breath and stood up gently. “He’s probably got it all under control, and we’re just fussing over nothing.”

Karan laughed with him, a sad, helpless sound. “Stay for a cravat?” Her smile faltered, and she glanced back to the counter, her eyes glossing over. Nezumi noted the fading in her voice and frowned.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“It’s…” Karan sucked her lower lip. “I usually make one for Tsukiyo.”

 

Nezumi escaped Karan’s hospitality after a cravat and some coffee, and at Shion’s request, he explored the new city and found his way back to the theater – or, rather, arts center. The building was one of the newer ones, and it was divided between a library, an art museum, and an auditorium. A chunk of rubble from the legendary fallen wall sat fenced-in and decorative on the front lawn of the place, with a brass plaque drilled into its front:

EVE MEMORIAL ARTS CENTER

_Built together by the people of former No. 6 and former West Block_

_To celebrate the fall of the wall that divided us_

_For the revival of creativity, fine arts, and an appreciation for history in our city_

_And in remembrance of the hero who brought hope to West Block and gave us one more chance_

_First Restructural Committee, 2020_

The hero of No. 6.

This had to be a joke. If there were ever a clearer indication that someone in power cried themselves to sleep over him, it would have knocked Nezumi on his ass. He could have gone without the reference to Elyurias’ “last chance” for them, too. And why “memorial”? He wasn’t dead yet. The building as a whole was a sloppy, sentimental threat.

No amount of staring at the engraved words would make them make any more sense. Nezumi wrinkled his nose at the sign and looked up to the glass double-doors, and he took a deep breath before he started up the steps.

The theater was to the right past the main doors, towards the southern corner of the building, and it was easy enough to navigate. The line for auditions was short, crossing outside of the main auditorium, and Nezumi appraised the could-be cast from a distance; they were nervous, excited, too green for a good performance, but it was something. Signs were posted on the wall, advertising the play and the open auditions. No. 6 was still new to the performing arts, so there wasn’t any community of veteran actors aside from the leftovers of the West Block plays, but they had a good stage to work with.

“Have you ever read it?” a girl in line asked another, both well-dressed and rosy. Nezumi arched a brow and watched the chatter. He could step into line, he considered, but then people might talk to him.

“I finished it last week. My dad got me a copy from No. 2.” The second girl, taller and with darker hair, tucked her arms around herself.

“Ooh, a real copy? I got access to it online. Who are you trying out for?” the first girl asked, smiling wide and playing with the folds in her bright blue skirt.

The second girl laughed at herself. “I really liked Mercutio. I don’t know if they’ll let a girl play him, though.”

“Come on. I’m from outside, and they’re letting _me_ try out.”

Was this what Shion wanted? The stories they had shared in that room, appreciated again in the new city? Nezumi stayed put against the wall, arms folded. Despite its name, maybe this place wasn’t completely awful.

Goosebumps pricked his arms.

“Go for it,” a new voice said. A man passing by the line, carrying some souvenir from the art museum, smiled at the Mercutio fan. He was tall, of indeterminate age, with white streaks in his dark hair, a soft face, and a shallow smile. “You have a smart voice and good posture. You’d be a great Mercutio.”

The girls smiled back at him, and Nezumi took a silent step away. He hadn’t expected this man to stray this far into the city, and whatever he was doing there, it couldn’t be innocent. He turned and started away, but after a few steps, a hand landed on his shoulder.

“Hey, it’s you!” the geologist’s voice cheered.

Nezumi’s response included a startled, ungraceful wheeze and a backward glance. It was all he could do not to kick the man, feeling threatened and impulsive.

“How have you been? It’s been so long!” The man grinned at Nezumi and, with a hand on his back, guided him away from the line of people and out the door. Nezumi shrugged his hand away and walked himself out more quickly.

“Not long enough, old man,” Nezumi growled back. “Weren’t you selling snake oil and sniffing through other people’s stuff last time I saw you?”

“Harsh. I’ve come a long way, though, don’t you think?” The geologist only had a few smiles in his repertoire, but each one made Nezumi uneasy. But he wasn’t wrong; his face was clean-shaven, his hair had a healthy shine to it, and he was dressed in a suit instead of rags and sandals. Instead of a pathetic old hermit in the wilderness, he was a charismatic, well-to-do psychopath. Much worse. “So, did you reconsider my offer? Because you’re a little late.”

“I didn’t come back for that,” Nezumi clipped out.

“Funny. You made it seem like you had nothing in No. 6 to interest you.”

“Yeah, well, personal reasons.”

“Aren’t they?” Another flat, greasy smile. “Speaking of personal, you didn’t mention that my son was the star council member of the new city. You recognized the name I was using last time, so I can only assume you knew about him.” Nezumi must have stiffened, because “Shion” narrowed his eyes. “You did know about him, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Nezumi growled. “I knew about him.”

“And you didn’t think that was worth mentioning to me before?” The geologist sounded genuinely hurt.

“More like, you’re not worth mentioning to him,” Nezumi scoffed, and he took a step further away from the man. Even as he started down the art center’s steps, the geologist followed beside him. “I didn’t realize your master plan involved ogling fledgling actresses in art museums.”

“The plan is to enjoy myself,” the older Shion sighed. “I wanted to see the art center my son built. I wonder who Eve was... I’ve heard my wife is still in the city, but I don’t think she’d want to see me,” he added, laughing softly.

The tired look on Karan’s face was stuck in his mind’s eye. Nezumi cast a glare at the man and stopped walking again. “So, are you just enjoying yourself? Did the mining scheme change?”

The geologist’s smile reminded Nezumi of a skull. There was no life there, no inflection or depth. Just hollow sockets.

“You opted out of the venture, remember?” the man chuckled. “You don’t have the right to ask about it.”

“And you don’t have the right to be here,” Nezumi whispered. The art center courtyard was quiet enough to add a chill to his voice. “You don’t have the right to destroy what he fixed. You don’t have the right to be his father. You don’t have the right to be anywhere near him.”

Despite the quiet excitement and curiosity on his face, the geologist took Nezumi seriously. “You _do_ know him,” he murmured. “You certainly don’t mince words. Who are you to keep a man from meeting his son? Are you threatening me?”

“Threats can be empty. I’m warning you.”

The geologist managed to look offended, but his shoulders shivered. “So I come into this city, read the paper, see my son on the front page, and you’re not allowing me to meet him?”

“You came to the city to splash around in everyone else’s work,” Nezumi spat. “I wouldn’t put Shion through the displeasure of meeting you.” That was hardly any way to talk to someone in public, but Nezumi was still trained on his West Block negotiating tactics: fight or flirt.

The older man’s face didn’t flinch this time; his eyes and jaw only hardened. “He’s a touchy subject for both of us, then?” Nezumi shut up and scowled. “We both left him behind. Neither of us have the right to be here. Yet here we are.”

Shion was one giant nerve in the middle of Nezumi’s chest. Once the geologist figured that out and reminded him of it, Nezumi shut down and crossed his arms, protecting the nerve and doing his best to be hard to read. At the very least, he should have been trying to learn something about this man, this threat.

“Here we are,” Nezumi agreed curtly. “And there’s nothing here for you, so I have to wonder why. I can only guess the mining’s paying off.”

“Should’ve taken me up on that offer, kid,” was all the geologist said before he smiled and turned to walk down the rest of the steps.

 

Shion wasn’t home when Nezumi came back to the apartment. Reading through _Leaves of Grass_ was entertaining enough – or it would have been, if Nezumi could have focused on the words. As it was, he couldn’t stop tapping his foot and turning over on the couch. If Shion had a meeting at eight, he likely wouldn’t be home until after nine or ten.

He would be in Shion’s apartment alone for hours. There was only one thing to do.

Nezumi let himself into Shion’s bedroom and looked around. He wouldn’t put it past Shion to have a diary. He looked for any such thing, tracing his fingers over the paper spines on a bookshelf.

Shion had begun to amass a new library; his bedroom mimicked the underground bunker in that regard, with bookshelves overtaking two walls and creeping up on a third. Nezumi recognized a number of the books from the old room, and he guessed that Shion must have rescued them from the musty old space. The pages were all yellow and smelled sweet, and the print was fading. All of the texture and character and love in the apartment had been saved for the shelves in the bedroom, and the worried ache in Nezumi’s chest switched itself out for something sweeter when he saw it.

He didn’t find a diary, but he flipped through a third of the books he came across. They were either the old, peeling leather-bound tomes that he knew well, or they were brand new, with inexperienced, uncreased pages and stories that he’d never read before. He pictured Shion sitting at the desk by the bed, calling to the other cities to send in new reading material, and snorted. He slipped a copy of _The Divine Comedy_ back onto the shelf (too sanctimonious for him) and fell back onto the bed, sighing at the ceiling. When he turned his head toward the nightstand, he smiled. _Gulliver’s Travels_ lay there, a piece of paper slipped between the pages as a place marker. When he picked the book up and opened it, the makeshift bookmark fell onto his chest.

It was a photograph. Nezumi arched a brow and picked the photo up. It had been taken in the few days he had spent in Lost Town with Shion and his mother. He and Shion were seated on the stair steps, engrossed in some kind of debate, candid and unaware that they were having their picture taken. Inukashi and Shionn were in the kitchen behind them, with the new parent trying to get something sharp away from the baby. Karan had probably taken the picture.

Nezumi decided that he looked weird in pictures, and he grimaced. He spent a moment to wonder if his face really looked like that before he noticed exactly how narrow the stairs were. He and Shion were sitting on the same step, with their shoulders pressed together and their fingers laced between them. He barely remembered the evening or the conversation, but looking at the picture, he remembered that Shion’s sweater was just a little scratchy and that his mouth had tasted like cinnamon that night.

He heard a key click in the front door before it opened. Sighing, he sat up and slipped the bookmark back into place, and he left _Gulliver’s Travels_ where he had found it before he went to greet his host. When Shion turned to look at him, Nezumi was smiling, his shoulder leaning against the bedroom doorframe.

“Welcome home, sweetie. How was work?”

Shion didn’t answer right away. He didn’t look angry anymore, at least. Nezumi waited, and Shion dropped into the couch, letting his messenger bag slump to the floor. He swallowed, working through his day behind his teeth, and finally sighed.

Nezumi snorted and shifted his weight off of the wall. “You look like you need a stiff drink. There’s still some crappy wine in the fridge.”

Shion closed his eyes. “No, thank you.”

“Well, how did the big meeting go? You’re home earlier than you threatened.” Nezumi made his way across the living room to sit with him on the couch. When Shion glanced up towards him, the shadows around his eyes stood out. His lips were dry and bitten from anxiety, and his presence as a whole felt withered. At least his hair couldn’t get any whiter. Nezumi sighed and lifted a hand, brushing a strand of pale hair out of Shion’s face. Shion leaned away from him and looked back down to his knees, and Nezumi put his hand back down on the couch cushion.

“It was cancelled. They forgot to tell me, apparently,” Shion mumbled.

“Wait, they cancelled a meeting without asking you?”

“They had the majority. It didn’t even matter if I wasn’t there.” Shion fiddled with his hair, pushing some of it back behind his ear the way Nezumi would have. “It’s been rescheduled for next week. The council decided to focus on clearing up some budget concerns before then.”

Nezumi grimaced. “Budget concerns?”

“ _Nothing_ ,” Shion elaborated. “They weren’t looking at anything. They were just fussing over numbers that were already straightened out. We talked about a few other plans for the city, a few other reports, but for the most part, they were wasting everyone’s time. When I brought up the issue in Mao that you told me about, they waved me off and said if there was a problem, the settlers would let us know.”

“Hmm.” Sitting back into the couch, Nezumi crossed his ankles. “Sounds like you just had a boring day at work. What’s really eating at you? Wasn’t Teddy cooperating?”

“Torey was quiet all day. It was weird.” Shion sucked on his cheek, and when he looked back up at Nezumi, his face had gone careful and calm. “The mining site you mentioned… I want you to take me there.”

Nezumi halted, and then a grin split his face. “What, my soft-skinned city boy wants to go trekking through the nature reserve?”

“You brought it up first. It’s a valid concern,” Shion stated. “Besides, they won’t let me do my job in the office.”

His voice and eyes were flat, and Nezumi hated it. He frowned at Shion and finally sat up straight to cross his arms. “So, all it took for you to listen to me was to suspect your new friends of working behind your back? I kind of miss when you were more naïve.”

“I wasn’t ignoring you, Nezumi. I told you I would look into it.” Shion squinted back at him, looking like he was trying to scold him already. “Speaking of looking into things, were you in my room?”

Nezumi managed to look guilty at first, but he smiled and shrugged. “I like it better in there. It feels like a hospital out here.”

Shion blinked and glanced around his home, like he was only just noticing how barren it was. He looked, trying to pick out enough comforting details to counter Nezumi’s comment, and when he failed, his shoulders sank, disheartened. “It… I guess it does,” he sighed. “I thought you might be more comfortable around the books. Just don’t keep me up reading. We still have to get up early.”

“To go take a walk in the settlement?” Nezumi started to grin, crooked. “Fine, I’ll take you, but just don’t kick me out again. That was embarrassing.”

“Then don’t pick fights with my coworkers,” Shion snapped, rolling his eyes. “ _That_ was embarrassing.”

“He just showed up,” Nezumi defended. He leaned forward to try and make Shion look him in the eye. “I had to pick a fight, with his smug, stupid little… Don’t ask me to like him.”

Shion chewed on a retort, but after a moment, he simply sighed. “Can we not fight again today? All day, I just wanted to apologize to you.”

That took the bite out of Nezumi’s voice. He nodded quietly and tried to shrug, just to look casual. “Yeah, okay.” He started to put an arm around Shion, but the smaller man looked so exhausted that he thought better of crowding him. He stood up, taking Shion’s hand. “You look like crap. How about you take a shower, and I’ll make you something to eat?”

“That sounds good,” Shion mumbled, standing with him.

“It’ll be a challenge, with all the stuff in your fridge. All I found earlier was a potato. Just a single, leftover baked potato. How do you live?”

Shion started to laugh, and Nezumi started to hope.

“We can pick up groceries tomorrow,” Shion mentioned. Nezumi was ready to comment on how much of a housewife that made him sound like, but then Shion added, “And I’m not making you sleep on the couch tonight. I’m sorry about this morning.”

Nezumi tried his damnedest to ignore how happy that made him. He had to open and close his mouth a couple of times before he could form a response.

“Shion, if you wanted the couch to yourself, you could have just pushed me off.”

And there was that ridiculous face. When Shion bit the inside of his cheek and furrowed his brow up at him, Nezumi just lifted his eyebrows and tried not to smile like he had won something.

“You said so this morning,” Shion mumbled, not even glancing away from him. “We’re used to sharing a bed. I just thought you’d be more comfortable.”

“I understand,” Nezumi purred. “If you missed me that much…”

Shion’s eyes narrowed by a splinter. “Do you want me to change my mind?”

“No, no.” Nezumi laughed and shrugged, turning back to the kitchen. Maybe he could find something to go with the lone potato in the fridge. He could make a modest soup out of it, perhaps. “Just go take your shower. Don’t take too long, though, or I’ll get lonely.” Shion grumbled something at his back, and Nezumi’s shoulders shook with quiet laughter.

Shion’s shower was quick, and dinner was nostalgically simple. Sleep that night came easier once someone’s hand touched the other’s, and Nezumi tried not to steal the blankets.


	3. I knew him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first finished chapter in two years lmfao. I know there's a lot of plot stuff going on, but we'll get to the cute stuff soon, I swear.
> 
> Here, we have a handful of non-canon characters as committee members.
> 
> Chapter warnings:  
> Graphic dead body

“So, was it your idea to name me the ‘hero’ of West Block?” Nezumi just had to ask. Shion sighed through his nose and kept walking.

“It’s too early for questions like that,” he replied easily. It _was_ early. Nezumi had woken him before sunrise, eager to investigate the mining operations in the Land of Mao, and Shion was pretending not to be as groggy as he felt. The coffee had helped, but not by much, especially when the sun was so slow in catching up to them. They had passed out of the main part of the city. They took Shion’s car and drove past the patched-up scars where the wall used to be, parked at the edge of the nature reserve, and soon after, they were walking on dirt paths among thick, soft grass.

“It’s not too early,” Nezumi laughed.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s about four years late.” Shion heard Nezumi huff behind him, but he kept a straight face and refused to take it back.

“Well, if you’re gonna be like that,” Nezumi grumbled. He trotted the long way around a slope of grass, but he came right back to Shion, straying only to orbit him again. “I just wanted to know whose dumb idea it was.”

“It was Torey’s,” Shion replied. The disgust on Nezumi’s face brought him some perverse satisfaction. “The entire city witnessed it. Everyone saw you singing. Torey said it was good for publicity while the new council was settling in.”

“Always happy to charm the masses,” Nezumi mumbled. Shion saw him kick at a stone as they walked.

Shion had only come out to Mao a couple of times, once to officially welcome the settlers from the caverns under the correctional facility, and again a year or so later for a formal update on the settlement’s progress. The land had seemed healthy during those visits, but as he and Nezumi walked the paths, the trees looked taller. The flowers were more vibrant, and the grass really was greener. He was staring at a small white butterfly when Nezumi spoke up again.

“I hadn’t been here in sixteen years.”

Shion glanced back at him, fell into step beside him, and reached for his hand. Nezumi took in a breath, and Shion watched him bite back a sigh before he accepted his fingers between his own.

Their banter died down after that, and Shion was able to look at the man next to him and simply enjoy his presence. For the first time in years, Shion didn’t feel like he was in a hurry.

Despite only one brief visit to the area since his childhood, Nezumi seemed to know the way through the forest. Shion followed him along a small, glassy stream, over a series of slender, fallen trunks, and through a meadow so green that Shion wondered if he had ever seen color before that moment. Even when their hands parted again, he stayed close. Shion had never felt lost in the woods so peacefully. He had seen the manicured gardens and the artificial nature of No. 6’s park district, and he had traversed the denser landscape separating the city from the wall with Nezumi, but he had never seen real wilderness anywhere but Mao.

Shion wondered how the Forest People had lived. He wondered if Nezumi had ever run through these exact paths as a child. He wondered if Nezumi felt disgust for the land and the memories it had left him, or if he didn’t feel anything for it, or if he had ever wished to return to it. Maybe they could do that. If Nezumi found the city too stifling, Shion could move outside with him and join the settlers. Nezumi could teach him to live off the land, to live simply. A small, cozy house, daily chores, and Nezumi’s singing.

The forest broke to expose a tall cliffside. The stark change in scenery nearly offended Shion, and when Nezumi murmured a dark, “We’re here,” Shion wished he could dip back into his daydream for just a few more minutes.

The trees stopped growing where the ground was too rocky, creeping up on the jagged cliff face. A few patches of brush were making efforts to break in the earth, cropping up between rocks and beginning the slow process of eroding the slopes into the soil. Shion noticed the slightest worn path along the base of the cliffside, new enough for the rocks not to be disturbed too deeply but only misplaced and dulled on the surface. In some places, mud and earth were tracked up over the stones, or foliage was crushed out of the way.

“Someone drove a car here,” Nezumi muttered, noticing the same out-of-placeness. There was a barely potential path along the rocky base of the cliffs where someone might drive a truck if they needed to transport a lot of raw materials. Shion wondered if the path might connect with the slim dirt road running through the reserve, seldom used except to meet or trade with the settlers. “Getting a little brazen. Someone would notice that.”

Nezumi picked up his pace to a brisk, irritated stride, and Shion had to trot to keep up. The cliffside was too tall, too solid on his right while the trees were open and breathing on his left, and he couldn’t help but feel unbalanced as he walked, gravity skewed by the mountain.

Shion had never seen a mine before. The districts to the south and east of the city farmed and produced lumber, and there were quarries along the edge of the woods, but Shion had never visited them. Not knowing what to look for, he pictured a classic illustration - a roughly square hole in the cliffside with layers of wooden beams for support. What Nezumi showed him wasn’t nearly as overt.

The crevice in the rock looked like it belonged there, a simple split angled to mask any path inside the cliffs. There was nothing distracting or bold about it. There was nothing to draw the eyes of the settlers, and no reason for the settlers to wander this far from the river. It never should have been discovered, and that thought made Shion frown as he followed Nezumi in through the split, into more shadow and less sun.

“How did you even find this?”

Nezumi glanced back at him, stared at him for a second too long, and then answered.

“Took me a week, remember? It’s not invisible. And whoever’s digging here doesn’t know how to cover up their tracks.” His eyes were more suspicious than defensive, and he studied Shion for an extra moment. Shion’s brow furrowed, and his fingers twitched when he realized just what Nezumi was trying to gauge.

“Did you think I knew about this?” Shion nearly spat out. He could feel warmth rising to his own face.

Nezumi took the accusation in stride and shrugged. “Couldn’t be sure,” he answered flippantly.

“I’ve trusted you this far.” Shion’s glare deepened. “That’s hurtful, that you’d doubt me.”

Nezumi’s head whipped up to look Shion in the eye. “Really?” he snapped. “You trust me? So what’s with the shitty attitude you’ve been giving me this whole time?”

“I can trust you and still be pissed off at you.”

A muscle in Nezumi’s jaw twitched, but he simply turned around again and pulled a flashlight from his bag.

“Did you really think I knew about this?” Shion pursued. “Why would I talk to the council about it if I didn’t want to solve this?”

“I haven’t seen your council meetings,” Nezumi scoffed. “I don’t know what you guys talk about in there.” He pulled a couple of thin cloths out of his bag and tossed one to Shion, and he understood quickly enough to unfold it and tie it around his nose and mouth while Nezumi did the same. Nezumi flicked the flashlight on and aimed it further into the split in the rock, revealing a tunnel, only narrow at the entrance. “It’s been four years, remember? I don’t know what you’ve been up to.”

“So you think I’d hide something like this and go back on all of our work. Right.” Shion finished tucking his mask into place and refused to acknowledge that he was sulking. Nezumi must have realized that Shion was going to stay bitter about this for a while, because he took a deep breath and attempted diplomacy.

“Shion, we’re both being cautious. That’s not a bad thing.” When Nezumi held out a hand to Shion, beckoning him closer, Shion’s anger began to soften. The gesture was just too graceful and familiar for Shion to be upset about it. “So, I’m going to trust you not to knock me over the head and bury me here when I show you this place. Okay?”

Shion let out a long, begrudging sigh, but he stepped forward and took Nezumi’s hand.

“What would I hit you on the head with? A loose rock? They look too heavy,” Shion mumbled.

“There’s my morbid airhead.” Nezumi’s eyes showed a grin, and he guided Shion into the fissure with the softly flickering flashlight. He rattled the flashlight and tapped it against his thigh until the beam of light held stronger. “I swear, you never used to argue this much. It’s exhausting, Shion. What happened to you while I was gone?”

Shion clenched his teeth and didn’t respond. He waited for Nezumi to realize he had finished his own question with the answer. At least he wasn’t arguing anymore. After a couple of seconds of stepping through the darkness, Shion felt Nezumi’s fingers squeeze his own.

“What do you think, ecologist?” Nezumi quietly changed the subject to the task at hand. “Artificial tunnel, right?”

Shion took a moment to look at the walls of the passageway. Certain types of stone might dissolve over time, but there were no signs of them. The slant of the cliffside and the rocks outside gave no reason for a fissure to form naturally there, and though it was well disguised from the treeline, the tunnel was obviously leading somewhere, nothing like an organic cave system. The ground was too flat and regular, compacted by faint footprints in the dirt, and the walls were made of recently-chipped rock, still jagged in places without the slow, real effects of erosion. A cold tension sank through Shion’s stomach, and all of Nezumi’s earnest warnings from the other night pieced together.

“Artificial,” Shion agreed quietly. “It looks like they had power tools.” He patted a particularly scored part of the wall. “There’s a lot of particulate matter on the floor, too, probably from drilling. It hasn’t had time for the rains to come in and wash it away, even though there’s a slight downward slope. They’ve been working very fast.”

He wasn’t sure who tightened their grip on the other’s hand first, but Shion’s fingers were clenched between Nezumi’s as they made their way further into the tunnel. Nezumi kept the light at an angle for them to watch their steps, and just enough light reflected off the walls to hang around their bodies, catching against Nezumi’s hair in ghostly strands. Soon, they were past the point of real daylight. The tunnel curved just enough to leave them in the dark, depending solely on the flashlight.

It took Shion another moment to realize just how firmly Nezumi _wasn’t_ shaking. None of his movements were relaxed enough to deviate more than an inch from their planned course - not so much grace as an excess of vigilance. When Shion tested him and loosened his grip on his hand, Nezumi’s fingers twitched and a muscle in his neck jumped, but he let go of Shion’s hand entirely.

“Don’t get lost,” Nezumi mumbled. Shion watched the slight highlight of his face.

Nezumi had spent two years living in caves. Shion couldn’t imagine him being afraid of them. Nezumi had been the brave one to lead Shion through the tunnels under the correctional facility, fearless even when their journey took them straight through Hell. But now, something wasn’t sitting right in Nezumi’s mind, and that could only mean that Nezumi didn’t know what to expect.

“You’ve been this way before, right?” Shion asked. His voice reverberated off of the wall no matter how quietly he spoke.

“Yes, but something’s not right,” Nezumi whispered back. The echo sounded like a soft, distorted hiss. “What’s that smell?”

Chills shot through Shion’s skin, and he nearly reached for Nezumi’s hand again. He hadn’t noticed the smell until Nezumi pointed it out, but then he was astonished that he had missed it. It was impossible to brush off the stink of rot, and as they continued forward, it only became stronger. Shion’s stomach turned, and when he groaned softly in disgust, Nezumi scoffed.

“My soft-skinned city boy,” Nezumi muttered. “You’d better be ready for whatever we’re about to see.”

Even so, Nezumi was just as revolted when they reached the deepest part of the tunnel. Whatever condensation had gathered along the walls had drifted down to pool at the end of the passage, and a shallow plane of stagnant water covered the last few feet of the floor, fouled by a corpse slumped against the wall.

The body of a man, middle-aged and not quite yet bloated with death, sat directly under an open vein of unrefined, glinting metal in the side of the rock. Abandoned tools lay haphazardly across the ground or were left leaning on the walls, and the cause of death was evident with a chunk of the body’s skull caved in and a bloody hammer lying several feet away, the dried blood just out of reach of the putrid water.

“Oh my god,” Shion heard his own voice choke. Beside him, Nezumi hissed inarticulately, and Shion found himself reaching for his hand again.

“I know,” Nezumi whispered back. “Calm down, Shion. You need to look at this with me.”

Nauseated, Shion nodded. It took him several tries to look the corpse in the face, and then it took him several more to recognize him.

Shaking, Shion let go of Nezumi’s hand, turned, tugged off his mask, and vomited on the tunnel floor. Coffee and acid.

“Shion,” Nezumi started, and Shion could feel his hand on his back between his shoulder blades. “Shion, come on. I need my genius right now. We can’t hang around here.” Shion wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and he struggled to look at the corpse again. He had to be sure.

He recognized that neatly trimmed beard, the sloped nose. Those were his glasses on the ground a few feet away, one of the lenses broken and missing and the other perfectly intact. The flashlight was trembling in Nezumi’s hand, but the light still caught enough of the distinct, braided wedding band on the man’s left hand for Shion to see it.

“It’s Kazuo,” Shion whispered. “He’s a council member. I work with him every day. He stayed at work late last night.”

Nezumi breathed a curse and scowled at the body. “Fucking great. What’s he doing here, then?”

Shion swallowed roughly, shook his head, and stared at the scene for any more details. His eyes flickered from Kazuo’s sunken, broken face, to the hammer, then back again. He took a moment to tie the mask back in place over his mouth. Finally, he picked up a small piece of sparkling rock off of the floor, and he checked his wristband for his own exact coordinates.

“He’s not wearing his wristband,” Shion started. “I’m not going to touch him. I’ll send a team to tend to him properly.” He blinked against the lightheadedness in his eyes, but to no effect - his awareness was floating somewhere above the floor, and the smell was becoming unbearable.

Kazuo brought his three-year-old son to work once a week. Yesterday, he had brought his lunch and eaten at his desk, and when Shion had stopped by to ask him a quick question, he had held him up for five minutes to tell him about a dog he had seen that morning. He liked carrot cake and collecting ceramic fish. Shion couldn’t look at him anymore. His ribs were constricting, trying to squeeze his stomach out, and he found his body tilting closer to Nezumi’s arm, so he set his hand on Nezumi’s elbow and turned to guide them both back out of the mine.

Nezumi didn’t hesitate to follow Shion out of the tunnels. Both of them tore off their masks once they were in the sunlight again, and while Nezumi was tucking them back into his bag with the flashlight, Shion slumped down against the cliffside and made a call with his wristband. Nezumi stared at the device uncomfortably, but once he seemed to realize what Shion was doing, he sat down next to him with a few feet’s distance. The call connected even this far from the city, and Shion’s voice proceeded hollowly as he reported his friend’s murder.

 

Shion arrived at work on time, even after their morning hike and a shower. Nezumi had made another pot of coffee, which they both seemed to need, and he drank silently at the table while Shion collected his coat, keys, and shoes. As Shion finished his second mug, he stood by the table and squeezed Nezumi’s hand by way of goodbye.

“Remember when it was you going to work and telling me to be good?” Shion mused softly, and Nezumi only answered him with an unsettled glance. Shion sighed and left his empty mug by the sink. “If you need anything, you can message me from the control panel on the wall.” He pulled his coat onto his arms. “Be good.”

“You know me,” Nezumi muttered, and those words gave Shion one thing to smile about before he walked out the door and drove to City Hall.

The police hadn’t contacted the Committee yet, and by the time Shion had arrived, it was still too early for anyone to have noticed that Kazuo was gone. The window of Kazuo’s office was lined with small ceramic figures, birds and fish that he and his son had painted together. Shion stopped inside the room briefly, and when he left, his hands were clammy and cold. As Shion was pouring his third cup of coffee that morning, Torey leaned against the counter in the break room to smile at him.

“You look tired. Long night?” Torey asked.

Shion ignored the apprehension in the question, adding a single packet of sugar to his dark coffee. He only nodded in answer, stirred in the sugar, and took a sip of his still-scalding drink.

“I’m calling a meeting first thing,” Shion told him once he’d found his bearings again. “Emergency.”

Torey’s smile shrank and tucked itself away. “What’s wrong?”

Shion could only infer so many things about finding Kazuo in the mine. He had to have been involved in the scheme somehow, if he had known where it was and gone there willingly. Even if he hadn’t traveled there willingly, he had to have known the people involved in the mining, and if that were the case, Shion found it highly unlikely that Kazuo had been the only council member to know about it. Shion knew that Nezumi had reached the same conclusion, even if they hadn’t said it out loud in so many words. When Shion had told Nezumi that he would call a meeting that day, Nezumi had simply told him to be careful.

But it was a hard thing to grasp. Kazuo had been the kindest, most down-to-earth man in the building. He was a good man. Shion hadn’t ever suspected that he could be capable of this kind of scheme. Then again, he had thought the same thing about all of his colleagues, and with the way they had all been avoiding his questions lately, Shion had to realize he might have been wrong. Maybe some of them were capable of murder.

“I’ll…” Shion rubbed his eyelid with the heel of his palm, staring at the tile. Torey’s eyes were too sharp. His face had lost too much color. Shion couldn’t look at him. “I’ll tell you in the meeting.”

His coworkers were surprisingly responsive that morning. Within minutes of making the announcement, eleven people were seated in the main conference room. The table was round, and the windows stretched across an entire wall, though the early morning left the west-facing room shaded and strangely matte. Shion seated himself close to the door, hands folded on top of the dark polished table.

“I didn’t see Kazuo come in,” Torey mentioned.

“Should we go ahead without him?” Elena glanced around. “We can fill him in later.”

Shion sucked in a small, tight breath.

The police were likely packing him away at that moment. A bloody hammer was being tucked into a sterile, labeled bag. The site under the cliffs was being taped off.

“I have some terrible news for everyone,” Shion started. His voice was flat, upset but controlled, and it got all ten other heads to turn towards him. Smiles were already falling. Realization was already coming across some of their faces. Keeping them in suspense was worse, so he took the step forward and told them. “Member Kazuo has passed away. The police will be contacting us soon, but I thought it would be better if you hear it from me.”

There was only a heartbeat of silence.

“How do you know?” Souta demanded. He kept his tone professional, but the disbelief was scrawled across his face. “How would you know before the police?”

“This morning,” Shion answered diplomatically, “I went to Mao, where I was concerned that there was unsanctioned mining in a nature reserve. I found a mine. Inside it, I found Kazuo. All I could tell was that he had been murdered sometime last night.”

The police would stop by Kazuo’s house first. They would tell his wife and daughter and son. Shion’s mouth was full of ash.

“Murdered?” Elena stared at Shion across the table.

Shion answered with a nod and no eye contact.

“And you just happened to find him?” Nathan’s words were harsh, bitten out, and Shion could feel his eyes digging into him. “You wandered into the wilderness and just stumbled upon him? That simple?”

“What are you implying, Member Nathan?” Torey bit back. “Shion told us yesterday about his concern. It’s not out of the blue for him to do field work.”

“It’s just too unlikely.”

Shion already felt like he was on trial. His stomach was full of coffee and acid.

“Yes,” Shion stated. “It was that simple. I found my friend dead underground this morning, and if you had listened to me yesterday about the mine, maybe we could have addressed it sooner. Maybe whatever brought Kazuo there wouldn’t have happened.” His body felt empty, light and airy as a birdcage, and he didn’t feel his lips moving when he looked up at Nathan. “Are you blaming me for this when I’m the only one who tried to do anything about it?”

Several people started talking at once. Pleas for Shion to not take it that way. Accusations that he was blaming the rest of them. People taking Nathan’s side. People scolding Nathan for attacking Shion so quickly. Elena was crying.

“That’s enough.” Torey stood up, his chair barking behind him when it dragged across the tile. All eyes turned to him, clean and handsome and sympathetic to everyone. Trustworthy. Charming. Hardworking. He even made the dim lighting of the conference room look softer and more welcoming.

“We still haven’t heard from the police yet,” Torey reminded everyone gently. “I understand. I’m scared. Kazuo should be here, making a joke and breaking the tension for us. But he’s not. I know all of us want to find who did this, but we can’t do that if we start attacking each other right off the bat. We have Member Shion’s report of what happened, and right now, we have to stay calm and wait for the rest of the facts.”

Nathan’s jaw clenched, but he looked down at the table in submission. Shion stared at Torey’s hands on the tabletop. Soft, slender hands, gracefully angled at the knuckles. They reminded him of someone.

Torey looked all ten of his coworkers in the eyes, smiled sadly, and lowered himself back down into his chair. “We’re the Restructural Committee. We’ve lost one of our members. The public will be asking questions, and we’ll have to address them today to reassure our citizens. We should visit his family and offer them our sympathy. And someone from his subcommittee will take over for him. We need to be prepared for all of that.”

It was a magic trick. Everyone was calm, if not happy. Everyone had direction. Everyone was thinking productively.

Torey turned to Shion next, eyes locked on him, and he set his soft, slender hand over Shion’s.

“I’m so sorry you found him like that,” Torey murmured. The pain in his voice made Shion’s lungs ache. “You shouldn’t have been alone for that. But it’s better that we know now, instead of having him missing.”

“I wasn’t alone,” Shion answered numbly.

Torey paused, but nodded with understanding. “Was Nezumi with you?”

Shion nodded, and a corner of him wished that he hadn’t spoken at all.

“Nezumi?” Souta frowned. “The same Nezumi, right?”

“He came back to No. 6 the other night,” Torey replied softly, still looking at Shion. “Did he show you where the mine was?”

Shion finished collecting himself, and he looked up to meet Torey’s eyes. “Yes. He was the one who brought news about the mine to me. He’s concerned that there are a group of people in the city taking advantage of the lack of security in Mao, and that a large influx of raw materials for one private group could upset the economy. And I’m worried that disturbing Mao could disturb Elyurias.”

The room took that name seriously. Elyurias was beyond fable and fiction, or anything childish to be brushed off. The city had witnessed her. The city had suffered her. The city remembered her.

“How did he know where the mine was?” Nathan had to ask, though he made an effort to seem more patient and reasonable than before.

“He scouted ahead last week,” Shion answered truthfully, “and came back to me with its location, hoping I could bring it to the Committee.”

“He can scout in the wilderness?” Yasuhiro snorted.

“He was born in Mao,” Shion replied, keeping back the clipped tone that threatened his tongue. “I doubt he wants to see it defiled anymore by unsanctioned miners.”

“I understand.” Torey nodded, and he subtly rubbed Shion’s knuckle with his thumb. “But Shion, please be careful with him.” Shion didn’t miss the small glance Torey cast across the table to the other members.

Nezumi had saved all of their lives. Nezumi had stopped the city from becoming one mass grave, one mass hive. And Nezumi would swear up and down that it was for some selfish reason, that he hadn’t done it for Shion or the good of the people, but Nezumi had bargained with a god for all of their lives. And now they were politely accusing him.

“I know.” Shion stared at Torey, then each of the other council members in turn. “He knew where the mine was, and he just got back, so you want to blame him. But Kazuo stayed late here yesterday, and I was with Nezumi the whole time since I got home last night until I came to work this morning. That, and it wouldn’t make any sense for him to lead me right to the spot he’d hidden a body.”

“Right,” Torey agreed carefully, “but still be careful. He knew something about the mine before any of us, so he might have connections and intentions none of us know yet. I just want you to keep an eye on him for us.”

Nezumi was not a suspect. Shion rejected that idea, wholly, bodily, tasting something bitter at the very idea of what Torey must have thought. But he couldn’t damage his credibility with the Committee any further by being too emotional. He nodded.

“Of course. And I hope that all of you will help me with the investigation.” Shion maintained steady eye contact with Torey this time, watching each flicker of his pupils. “I suspect that Kazuo found out something about who was using the mine, and that he was taken there. I can’t think of any other reason he would be there.”

Kazuo was involved. And so were other council members. Shion was in a room with someone who had already known about Kazuo’s participation in this scheme, and maybe even his death. Maybe all of them had known, and Shion was the only one left out of a circle of criminal activity. And he had to keep pretending not to suspect any of them, or they might kill him, too. He would have to investigate this alone, but he wanted to see Torey’s reaction.

It was smooth and genuine as ever. Torey nodded, wearing a compassionate frown. “Of course. I want everyone to get ready to ask whatever questions they might have for the police. I’ll get ready for a press briefing. Souta, can you go downstairs and talk to Kazuo’s subcommittee?”

The meeting adjourned from there. It was early enough that the vast majority of the committee members went to the break room for coffee and a moment of silence. Instead, Shion went back to Kazuo’s office.

He tapped a couple of buttons on the screen to erase his activity, and then pulled his memory stick from Kazuo’s computer. He had let it download over the course of the meeting, knowing that he had to get to it as soon as possible. If Kazuo had been involved in the mining, and if any other committee members were involved, they were likely to erase his files themselves. Shion doubted that he would find anything truly incriminating on Kazuo’s work computer, but he wanted to make sure.

He couldn’t just announce that he wanted to look over Kazuo’s files and then expect all of the pieces to be there.

 

Two police officers arrived an hour later. Another brief meeting was called, and everyone had a list of questions for them. No biological material had been found of a suspect, but the officers assured everyone that they had other ways of narrowing down who might be responsible. The truck tracks were one thing, so they would be looking through different vehicles that passed through the roads to Mao. The two officers thanked them, and invited them to call them if they remembered or noticed anything else.

Shion had returned to his office. He was rubbing his temple against a blooming migraine, and he looked down at his wristband when a message notification popped up.

_Message from Home: Got groceries. Going to the settlement. Home for dinner xx_

Shion wanted to melt into his desk. He was sad and exhausted, so for just a moment, he let himself dissolve into violent envy over two little letters. Even if this was the worst day of his career, he had Nezumi’s cooking to look forward to at the end of it. He typed back a quick message.

_Shion: Be safe, and be careful. Some people here want to blame you._

He looked up when Torey tapped on his doorframe. Sighing, Shion closed the virtual screen of his wristband, and he pushed himself up from his desk. He had to be present at the press briefing.


	4. I' the church

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has read so far!!! I've gotten so much wonderful feedback and support for the first three chapters, and I'm so grateful for every word of it. Your kindness and enthusiasm is amazing.
> 
> Chapter warnings:  
> organs - mild  
> panic attack-like event - mild  
> knife and gun violence  
> blood and injury

_Some people here want to blame you._

Nezumi read Shion’s response from the small panel on the wall and snorted. Of course there was someone in the Committee who wanted him to be guilty. He turned away from the panel and finished putting away the groceries in the kitchen.

He didn’t have money, at least not in No. 6’s currency, so he had used a small amount from the card that Shion had left on the counter for him. It was food enough for a few days, enough that he could cook something better than one-potato soup. The grocery store had been nice, too. Clean. Fresher and higher quality food than Nezumi had ever seen in West Block, that was certain. He set the card back on the counter, took Shion’s spare key, and locked up behind himself when he left.

The walk to the settlement wasn’t a long one, as long as Nezumi kept a certain pace. Chronos was a different town than four years ago, as was Lost Town and what the people were still calling West Block. In Chronos, the buildings were simpler and more efficient, more productive for the whole community. There wasn’t luxury or ostentatiousness, but a clean, beautiful modesty. In Lost Town, the streets were tidier, and the people looked healthier. There was more in the shops. The divide had lessened.

Maybe No. 6 had been rebuilt right this time.

Nezumi chewed on a sigh but didn’t let it out, and he took a turn onto the main road north once he reached the middle of the city. West Block had improved dramatically, with actual homes being built, trade and services being exchanged with the inner city, and a massive decrease in crime, but it was still West Block. When he had seen it the other day, he knew that it hadn’t changed enough. It had stepped up from slum to neighborhood, but he had known it too well to have faith in it. For four years, he had known it too well.

His life happened in those kinds of increments. Four years in Mao. Six hiding with Gran. Two underground with the refugees. Four more in West Block. And then another four wandering the deserted lands. Shion couldn’t understand the restlessness that gave him.

Nothing stayed the same. Nothing was reliable. Not a house, not a city,  and not a person.

And now he was returning again. After only a couple of days, he was grocery shopping and holding a key in his pocket, thinking about sitting down for dinner with Shion. Thinking about chopping vegetables in the same kitchen more than one night. Wondering how long it would take him to memorize the pattern on the ceiling while trying to fall asleep in the same bed.

He could venture hundreds of miles away, and he could still find his way back to these fixed points. He could try to escape and move on, but he could picture the exact steps he could take from Town Center to go back up the front step of the bakery. He could picture the smoothness of the door handle, the sugary scent of the kitchen, the soft creak of the wooden steps upstairs, and the quiet lighting of Shion’s old bedroom. He could sit down at that exact spot on the old mattress, look around, and be exactly where he had been four years ago, no matter how far he had flung himself away from it before.

Some people liked those kinds of attachments.

How many sighs did he have to swallow? Nezumi sucked in a breath, brushed his hair out of his face, and took it down from its band just to retie it as he walked. The road under him was red brick, evenly set, adding to the warm and homey atmosphere the entire city was attempting to smother him with.

Leaving the main city was a relief, and then all Nezumi had to do was follow the road north into Mao. The further he went, the denser and taller the trees grew. It was an easier path than the one he and Shion had taken to the cliffs that morning. Nezumi still hadn’t seen the settlement - he had only explored the land around it.

After a few miles, the dirt road widened, and the trees gave way to a small cluster of village. The houses were built of stone and wood, with stone or clay chimneys and some metal pieces for door handles or hinges. The road led directly to the center of the settlement, and in the middle of the larger group of buildings, the dirt road was curved into a wide roundabout. In the center of that was a large stone platform, stacked with cut wood on one side. Nezumi could only assume the platform was used for village events and meetings. Some distance away, Nezumi saw a fenced meadow with a small herd of sheep. As a whole, the settlement was tucked into the trees and shaded well. The ground was only cleared of foliage as much as was necessary for houses and gardens, and the rest was happy to be overgrown by nature.

People were busy with their days, all dressed in undyed linen and wool. Some of them tended gardens, and others carried wood or water to one building or another. One man was sitting in front of his house, tending a large cookpot suspended over a fire, and he gave bowls of whatever was in it to anyone who passed him. Children brought back stacks of empty bowls to him and thanked him, the way their parents taught them to, and then ran off to chase each other, screaming and laughing.

The familiarity and strangeness of the place made Nezumi’s stomach twist.

“Boy,” the old man by the cookpot called. Nezumi’s head snapped toward him. The old man smiled, layers of wrinkles stretching around his mouth, and he patted a vacant crate beside the one he himself was seated on. “Come sit. You walk the whole way?”

He didn’t deserve this hospitality. He didn’t live there. This wasn’t his home.

His home was gone. These homes were new.

Good, hardworking people, escaping No. 6 and building a new home on his family’s ashes. It wasn’t even their fault.

Nezumi swallowed the knot in his throat and stepped forward. He skirted around the fire, and before he had even sat down, the old man had a full bowl of stew cupped in one hand, a ladle in the other. Along with the bowl, he passed Nezumi a worn but clean wooden spoon. Nezumi mumbled a “thank you” and took what he was offered.

“Most people don’t walk,” the old man said. His voice wasn’t feeble, but some of his letters whistled between his teeth. “They drive. Glad you made the trip.”

Nezumi had just arrived, and he was being fed and chatted to and treated like family. That was never how things went with strangers. Never.

Except with Shion and Karan.

“Don’t have a car,” Nezumi answered, just because he was supposed to say something. Four years alone in the wastelands must have let his charisma atrophy.

The old man laughed plainly. “Hey, me, neither. But nobody ever comes up here if they don’t have business, and business usually means they need a car to haul something one way or another.” He watched him with a curious eye while Nezumi took a tentative first bite of stew.

Scalding hot. Just enough seasoning. Chicken and carrots and squash. Plenty of garlic. Perfect. Nezumi blew on it and took another bite.

“Different business,” Nezumi admitted with his mouth half full. “Don’t need a car to carry questions and answers.”

“Ah.” The old man nodded. “Well, I’m Martin. What kinda questions did you bring us?”

“I was actually wondering about life here.” Nezumi swallowed his food and smiled. Martin was helpful right from the beginning, and that came as a relief, but it couldn’t hurt to be careful. “How much trade does the settlement see?”

“A fair amount,” Martin replied. He picked up a large clay cup of water and sipped from it. “What we get is pretty steady. You thinking about joining us?”

“Maybe.” Nezumi glanced around, as if considering the homes around him. “I want to know what options I’d have here. What skills and trades I could learn.”

“Well, there’s plenty of farming,” Martin answered. “We’re expanding up on the east side. Meadows to fields, conserving as much trees as we can. There’s hunting. And there’s building.”

“What about pottery? Clay digging, or quarries?” Nezumi looked back to Martin and kept up his smile.

“Some of that, sure.” Martin nodded. “The clay here’s not too good, though. Most of the stones come from South Block.”

“Oh.” Nezumi looked disappointed, but then grinned again. “What about raw materials? There’s the farming and hunting, but what else?”

“We don’t do too much logging,” Martin admitted after a moment of thought. “We’re trying to keep as much of the forest here as we can. It just started growing back. It wouldn’t do much for the people who lived here before us if we just cut down the trees again, you know?”

Nezumi swallowed back the weight in his throat. “Right.”

“Lots of fishing,” Martin continued. He tilted his head up and stared at the treetops above them. “We’ve got a good river to the north. Farms to the east. City to the south. It’s a good little place.”

“What about west?” Nezumi watched him with casual curiosity.

Martin hesitated. It was just for a moment, but it was there. “Some cliffs to the west. Ground’s too rocky for farms or anything useful.”

“No?” Nezumi raised his eyebrows. “I wonder how the cliffs formed. Have you been over there to check for caves or anything?”

Martin’s grin dropped, and he shook his head slowly. “Don’t need to worry about that. We have everything we need without heading over there.” He spoke with a sense of finality that Nezumi thought was strange. Even worse was the tiny westward glance in Martin’s eyes. Something that way scared him.

There was a chance that Martin was working for the miners, or being paid or threatened for silence. If Nezumi pushed anymore and made himself suspicious, Martin might tell someone that he had come in asking questions. And if the first settler he’d sat down and talked to didn’t want to talk about mining, the rest of them were likely oblivious or involved as well. Asking the settlers was useless at best, and dangerous at worst.

And Nezumi had hoped this would be easy.

“Alright,” he relented.

“Anything else I can help you with, mister…?”

“Nezumi. And no, that’s about it.”

Martin stopped for a moment and tilted his head. His stare was almost owlish, and it was enough to make Nezumi stop eating for a moment.

“Well now,” Martin mused. “The singer?”

“From the West Block theater, yeah,” Nezumi agreed, trying to smother his unease.

“No, son. From the Moondrop. From _here_ .” Martin gestured vaguely to the forest around them. “You’re the _Singer_.”

Nezumi had been used to being recognized in West Block, to some degree. His plays gave him some infamy to work with. But acting was one thing. People didn’t recognize you for who you were if they only saw you reciting someone else’s words. But this man knew where Nezumi was from. He knew what he had done. His unease blossomed into profound discomfort, and Nezumi dug into his bowl of stew to distract himself.

“I guess I am,” he mumbled.

“You’re Her _last_ Singer,” Martin pressed. “We thought you left.”

“I did.” Nezumi finished his bowl and frowned mildly at Martin. “I’m not here for Her, though.”

“We could really use you,” Martin insisted. He took Nezumi’s empty bowl and offered to refill it, and Nezumi shook his head. “We can keep Her happy. We make Her a nest, and She seems happy with it. Like She gets what we’re trying to give to Her. But a Singer would make Her so happy.”

“A nest?” A chill shot up Nezumi’s spine to the base of his skull. Martin nodded eagerly, set aside the bowl, and stood up.

“Please let me show you. It’d be an honor.”

Numb, Nezumi stood and followed him. Martin led the way past the buildings, through a couple of small trails, and into a meadow set apart from the settlement.

It would have been a lovely spot, if not for the pit dug into the middle of the ground, filled with a soft, lumpy grey mass. It was framed with boughs from the trees, decorated lovingly with dried, dead flowers. Nezumi could smell the stench from ten yards away.

Martin glanced at him and wrung his hands. “We didn’t have much to go on,” he confessed. “We just followed the old traditions we found, and She seems to understand our intentions. That we want to appease Her.”

When Nezumi had been younger, he didn’t understand the tradition. The Nest of God wasn’t something his parents had explained to him in depth as a small child. Now that he was seeing it as an adult, it occurred to him just how bizarre and disgusting it was. A ditch filled with animal brains. A sacrifice to the Forest God.

“Looks like you’re doing a great job.” Nezumi didn’t know what else to say, or what Martin wanted to hear.

“We’re sure trying,” Martin laughed modestly. “Her babies, the little wasps, they don’t bite us. They don’t bother us, because She’s happy. But there’re more and more of them in the woods lately. Making some people nervous. We don’t know what it means.” Martin’s eyes stuck to Nezumi. “You’re just who we need. If you could talk to Her, ask Her what She wants. Sing to Her, if need be.”

Was She honestly happy? The city had been improving. People were making offerings to Her again. As far as Nezumi knew, Elyurias should be elated. She was home.

Safu was dead.

Nezumi stepped back into the trees, away from the clearing.

“That’s all She needs,” he heard himself say. His heart was pounding in his ears. “She’s fine.”

His throat was closing up. The blood rushed from his head, beating wildly and abandoning him, and he felt his shoulder hit the bark of an elm tree.

The wind caught up the leaves above him. It caught in his hair. It caught the stink of rotting brains. The wind pushed against his lungs.

Welcome home.

This wasn’t home.

This was the farthest fucking thing from home.

Martin’s voice was a watery echo. It called in surprise and said Nezumi’s name. Nezumi held his hands to his face, breathing in gasps.

His own breath rasped in his ears. Singing. Screaming. Shrieks from far away, over hills, through nighttime trees bright with fire-glow. Everything else was silent.

It held him for a long time.

It passed on its own.

The wind subsided. Nezumi didn’t know when he had closed his eyes, but he breathed slowly and listened to the trees. Birds. Just birds.

After another moment, he looked down at Martin’s hand on his shoulder, and then the old man’s concerned face. Martin let his hand fall back to his side.

“You alright, son?”

He wanted to vomit. Nezumi nodded.

“Fine,” he mumbled. “It’s just been a long time since I’ve seen a Nest.” He ran his fingers through his bangs, pushing his hair out of his face, and stood up straight.

“Not the prettiest sight in the world, are they?” Martin chuckled, but his brows were drawn with worry. “Let’s go back and sit a while, alright? You’re pale.”

“Okay,” Nezumi mumbled. He felt pale, like another breeze would blow right through him. “I’ll come back sometime and sing. Just… Not today.”

Martin nodded. “That’s a fair deal to me.”

 

The walk back to No. 6 felt longer than the way out of it. Even after the vertigo had passed and Nezumi could breathe properly, he couldn’t get the smell of the nest out of his mind.

He had gone four years without an attack. Four years without the grim legacy of the Forest People to strangle him. He was a child when he had been severed from that way of life, and he wanted no part of it now. It was behind him.

By the time he was back in Chronos, he had recovered his composure. He could take a full breath and let it out smoothly, and something as simple as the wind didn’t make his shoulders tense. He started to think about dinner, wondering if he should try to bake the chicken in Shion’s oven. Nezumi had never used an oven before, but it couldn’t be too complicated.

The moment of peace only lasted until Nezumi reached the street corner of Shion’s apartment complex.

This was a different street. The complex was relatively removed from the rest of the city, and foot traffic around Chronos was thin in the first place, but this was different. The street was empty.

An empty street in Chronos was the same as one in West Block.

All it took was a hair on the back of his neck. That same itch, the same hypervigilance, had saved his life too many times for him to ignore it.

Something scraped the pavement behind him.

He bolted to the right, around the corner of the building. In nearly the same instant, he recognized the sounds, the tiny hitch of metal and the pop that crowded his eardrums, and then the explosion of bright pain through his side.

But he had made it around the corner of brick wall. He had just a second of cover. He pressed a hand to his side, and it came back hot and red. Damage to the muscle. The wound had an entry and exit, so close to his side that it was just worse than a graze.

Around the corner, someone snarled, “Fuck,” and another laughed, “Told you, should’ve come the other way.”

Nezumi didn’t know these voices. He grabbed the knife from his belt and wished that he had been smart enough to bring his superfiber cloak. This shit always had to happen when he forgot what little armor he possessed, and all he had was one six-inch hunting knife.

He saw the handgun first. As soon as he saw the barrel around the corner, he lashed out with the knife. It cut across the gunman’s wrist, and the attached hand opened its fingers in surprise.

The gun clattered to the pavement. Nezumi ducked down to grab it, but before his fingers could reach it, the gunman’s knee caught him in the face, smashing into his mouth and jaw.

His teeth cut his lip and cheek. Through the pain, he congratulated himself for avoiding a broken nose.

He forced his eyes open again. Two shapes. Two men. One gun on the ground. One gun in the other man’s hand.

Nezumi rolled forward. He caught the first gunman under his knee and pushed it upward, cutting into his leg and sending him toppling over on his companion. The strain of motion burned in his side, but Nezumi forced himself through it. With the knife in his right hand, his left closed around the gun. He picked it up, stood, and faced the two attackers.

He didn’t know their faces. The second man, tall and dark-haired, shoved his unbalanced companion off his shoulder and started to raise his gun again. He stopped when he saw Nezumi aiming at his throat.

“Drop it. Who the fuck are you?” Nezumi growled. He tasted blood on his teeth.

The tall man showed his hands. He held the gun loosely and harmlessly in his fingers, and he eased himself lower to set it down on the ground. He stared Nezumi in the eye, impassive, but he clearly didn’t want to die for this. The first man, shorter and softer in the face, was still whimpering over his wrist and leg.

“You don’t need two people to mug someone,” Nezumi pressed. “You don’t start out shooting to mug someone. And in all of Chronos, I’m the only one who doesn’t have any money. But this isn’t a mugging. Who are you?”

The short man was frozen, terrified and pale. The other was still staring Nezumi in the eyes, hands open by his head and weapon on the sidewalk.

Nezumi’s eyes narrowed when neither of them said anything. He turned the gun towards the short man.

“You know, I only need one of you to talk.”

“He paid us,” the short man blurt out. He was already shaken and in pain. “Please. We don’t know you. He just paid us.”

“Yeah, I already figured out that someone paid you,” Nezumi snapped, and he spat out a gob of blood when too much of it filled his mouth. “The guy’s name would help me.”

“I don’t know. We don’t know,” the short man pleaded. When the tall man twitched, looking towards the gun on the ground, Nezumi pointed the barrel back toward him. Their eyes locked again, and everyone held still.

Moving slowly, Nezumi put his knife back at his belt. He kept the gun aimed at the tall, stoic man, grit his teeth against the pain in his side when he crouched down, and picked up the second gun. When he stood back up and put a couple of yards between himself and the two men again, he released the magazine of one gun, then tossed the clip aside.

“Did this guy have anyone else on his list, besides me?” Nezumi asked, talking while his hands worked.

The tall man thought that was a good time to run. The moment he shifted his weight and tried to dart past his injured companion, Nezumi turned the gun on him. It still had one bullet in the chamber, so he shot him in the thigh.

The tall man collapsed and screamed. Nezumi dropped the empty gun in pieces, grabbed him by the hair, and shoved him back toward the brick wall to make him sit next to his accomplice.

“One more time.” Nezumi’s words tasted like metal, cold and smooth. He still had one loaded gun in his hand. He tapped it against the tall man’s cheek. He didn’t look so stoic anymore, angry and pained but too scared to move. “Does anyone else have a hit on them? Anyone who lives around here?”

“What, you mean council members?” the tall man grit out, and he cast an ugly smile up at Nezumi.

His arms burned, buzzed, like electricity was prompting them to move. He wanted to kill this man. He wanted to carve that threatening smile off his face. Every muscle in his body was made of pain and terror and bile. Nezumi pressed the tip of the gun to the man’s temple, and he watched that smile vanish.

His voice hurt to use. He could have choked on it.

“Where is Shion?”

Shion wasn’t home yet. These two men had been waiting by the apartment. Maybe they had even broken in. Maybe there were more of them. Maybe there were two more of these goons at City Hall. Shion wasn’t home yet. His little silver car wasn’t in the lot.

Tires screeched on the road, and Nezumi turned his head for a moment.

There was Shion’s little car, parked halfway over the curb.

There was Shion, scrambling out of the driver’s seat.

Nezumi’s shoulders went slack, and he stepped back from the two men. There was Shion, running towards him and snatching the gun out of his hand, and Torey, following behind him from out of the passenger’s seat.

Shion whispered Nezumi’s name. His eyes were wide. Nezumi had forgotten how pretty Shion’s eyes were, tinged red and pink and almost violet in different lights. Unnatural but warm. Without pretense. Those eyes looked over Nezumi’s face, the blood on his lips, and the blood soaking his side.

Shion held the gun to the tall man’s forehead.

“Shion,” Torey started to argue from several yards away. “Stop.”

For once, Nezumi agreed with Torey. He put a hand on Shion’s back, whispering to him.

“It’s okay, Shion. I’m here. Just stop. They’re already hurt.”

“Not hurt enough,” Shion murmured tonelessly. He wasn’t blinking.

“We weren’t after you.” The tall man’s eyes were shut tight, and he was pressing his back into the brick wall. His hands were clenched around his bleeding thigh. “Just Nezumi. Not Shion. Please.”

“You tried to kill him?” Shion whispered.

Gently, Nezumi reached forward and touched Shion’s wrist. As he raised Shion’s arm, guiding the gun up and away from the man’s skull, it was like slowly peeling off a bandage.

Shion’s hand was shaking. He was staring at the men bleeding on the ground in front of him.

“Torey, call the police and an ambulance,” Shion finally ground out from between his teeth. Behind him, Torey tapped his wristband and made the call. Nezumi shut his eyes with relief, and he turned to lean his weight against the brick wall. He let himself begin to slide down several feet away from his attackers. His eyes were full of spots.

Shion was still holding the gun, and his eyes were slightly too wide. He crouched down in front of the two unknown men, and he stared at each of them.

“Such plain faces,” Shion breathed. “So plain. But I’ll remember them. Do you know why?”

They didn’t ask why.

“Because,” Shion murmured, “these are the faces of people who hurt Nezumi. I don’t forget those faces. And if I see them again, I will take them apart. If anything happens to Nezumi after today, I’ll come looking for them. I’ll make these plain faces a lot more interesting.”

The short man exhaled and started to cry. A strange, sick feeling boiled in Nezumi’s stomach, and he couldn’t quite reconcile how he felt cherished and horrified at the same time.

Shion moved over to Nezumi. He held the gun pointed lazily toward the other two men, and his empty hand came up to cup Nezumi’s cheek. He looked at him so tenderly that it nearly made Nezumi’s skin crawl.

“Let’s get you to the hospital,” Shion ushered him, and he guided his arm under Nezumi’s shoulder to help him up. Nezumi’s legs shook when he stood, and the top of his head felt too hot and too cold, but he divided his weight between Shion and the wall for support. The next moment, Shion helped him start towards the car.

His side hurt. It had started out burning and stinging, red tissue panicking over the damage, and progressed to a constant throbbing.

“Hey, remember the last time I got shot?” Nezumi managed a small laugh and a bloody grin.

“Not funny,” Shion mumbled.

“I’m just saying, this isn’t nearly as bad,” Nezumi insisted. Shion needed to calm down. The last time Nezumi had been shot, he had lived through worse than this. Then again, the last time Nezumi had been shot, Shion had also killed someone for it. Maybe he shouldn’t have brought it up after all.

“Shion.”

Both of their heads looked up at Torey. He had finished the call and closed his wristband screen, and his eyes were fixed fretfully on Shion.

“You can’t just take him independently. The ambulances will be here, and the police will want to question him.”

Only Nezumi noticed it. His hand rested over Shion’s shoulder, on the right side where he held the gun. He felt Shion’s right arm twitch.

“You think this is his fault.” Shion’s voice had gone flat and cold again. “Did you miss the part where they said they were after him? They said those words.”

“I heard,” Torey assured him. “That doesn’t make him innocent. We don’t know everything that happened.”

“What’s he guilty of?” Shion scoffed. “Self defense?”

Torey frowned. “He was holding the gun, Shion.”

“This isn’t his gun,” Shion growled, and he glanced at Nezumi. “He doesn’t even own a gun. It’s theirs, right?”

Nezumi nodded weakly.

“See?” Shion let Nezumi lean against the car while he handled the gun. He set the safety on, dropped the magazine, and tossed the pieces of the gun on the ground in front of Torey. “I don’t have time for this. He’s bleeding. You can stay and watch them until their ambulance gets here.” While Shion opened the passenger door of the car for Nezumi and helped him in, Torey picked up the gun and magazine, staring at the pieces unsurely.

“You’re going to leave me here with these guys?” Torey scowled more at Nezumi than at Shion.

“You’ll be fine. They’re the victims here, right?” Shion shut the passenger door, and then crossed around to slide back into the driver’s seat. As he shut his door and started the engine, Nezumi let his eyes drift closed.

“Do you feel faint?” Shion asked gently, starting the drive up the road. Nezumi grunted a negative. “Liar. Keep pressure on your side.”

“I know, I know,” Nezumi grumbled. While Shion drove, he reached over with one hand and laced his fingers through Nezumi’s on the console between them. Nezumi leaned his head against the shoulder of his seat, and he kept his other hand pressed firmly to his side. The adrenaline was running out, and the fatigue and blood loss were setting in.

“I’m bleeding on your car,” Nezumi mumbled.

“I know,” Shion replied with all the gentle indulgence of a mother to a confused child.

“We’re going to the hospital.” Nezumi’s mouth was full of cotton.

“I know,” Shion agreed.

“I don’t like hospitals.”

“I know.” Shion squeezed his hand. “I won’t leave you.”

Nezumi answered with a lightheaded smile that Shion didn’t turn his head to see. The last time he had felt like this was the first night he and Shion had come to the bakery together, collapsed beside each other on the bed upstairs, and slept the night through. When the mess was over. When Nezumi knew that nothing else would harm him.

Safety. That was it.

Nezumi peeled his eyes open for a moment, looking at the clock on the dashboard.

4:12 pm.

“You’re home early.” The realization was sluggish.

Shion let out a long, slow sigh, and his thumb traced back and forth over Nezumi’s knuckles. Shion’s hand was warm. “We had a press briefing about Kazuo a few hours ago. It was...demoralizing. The day sort of stopped after that.” Shion’s jaw set, and his eyes were firm on the road ahead. “I didn’t think today could get worse, but then I saw you from up the road, holding the gun, bleeding...”

Nezumi hummed in understanding, and he let his eyes sink shut again.

“Speaking of worse,” he murmured, “I found something in Mao.”


	5. The stars are fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good lord I’m so not used to writing fight scenes. I hope the last chapter was coherent enough, and I hope I got the gun terminology right??
> 
> Here, I get to make up a few things about legal proceedings because we don’t really know all the laws of No. 6 as a sovereign city-state??? I was a little worried about this chapter because it brings up the topic of weapon laws and registration, which nobody really enjoys talking about. I just wanted to clarify that everything regarding that in this story is written in the context of No. 6. There are different nuances to weapon laws in every region of the world, and I'm not trying to make a statement about any of them via fanfiction. Suffice it to say that I'm extremely uncomfortable about weapons, but Nezumi uses them a lot, so I did my best to approach it through only the context of the story.
> 
> I want to thank each and every one of you for reading this story. It’s honestly been amazing to get this kind of feedback. I’m proud of the story this is shaping up to be, and it makes me so happy that people are enjoying it. Thank you so much for being so kind and encouraging!
> 
> Chapter warnings:  
> Medical and legal bullshit  
> Needles - mild  
> The fluffiest shit I’ve ever written in my whole life like wow  
> Explicit consensual sex (finally earning that E rating jfc)

Shion was made to wait in a different room while the hospital staff tended to Nezumi, and he spent that time sitting perfectly still with his face in his hands. Nezumi didn’t need surgery, so it was hard for Shion to understand why he wasn’t allowed to be there with him. As if he would get in the way. As if Nezumi didn’t absolutely need him. In the next hour, Shion slowed his breathing and put the day in order in his mind.

Nezumi had given a slow, mumbled report of his day in the car. The settlers were avoiding the cliffs, and Elyurias was regaining Her strength. That didn’t have to be a bad thing, as long as She was happy, but Nezumi had seemed worried about it.

And someone wanted Nezumi dead.

He had only been back for a couple of days. Shion hadn’t had him back for forty-eight hours, and someone was already trying to take Nezumi away from him.

What had he even done?

Nezumi had asked questions. Nezumi had guided Shion to the mines. Nezumi had brought the whole problem to his attention.

Who knew that Nezumi had been asking questions?

“Member Shion?”

Shion raised his head. His hands nearly stuck to his face from having stayed in place for so long, but he withdrew them and looked up at the doctor who had come to greet him.

“He’s ready for visitors now,” the doctor told him with a tired smile. “Or rather, he’s refusing medication until we let him see you.”

Shion chuckled humorlessly and stood up. “I’m sorry he’s being difficult.”

The doctor tilted her head to one side and slid her eyes the same direction in an unspoken, ‘to put it lightly.’ “He doesn’t want any pain medication. Maybe you can help us talk him into it.”

“I’ll try.”

The first thing Shion saw when he walked into Nezumi’s room was a nurse pleading with him to lie back down instead of trying to sit all the way up. Nezumi’s eyes were wide and suspicious, and his hands were braced on the railings on either side of his gurney. His black hair had undone itself at some point, and it was hanging over his face and shoulders, unsure of where it wanted to be. His shirt had been removed, and the hospital staff had not yet managed to slip a gown around his shoulders, leaving him naked to the waist but for a large patch of bandage taped over his side.

As soon as Nezumi turned his eyes on Shion, the paranoia drained out of his face, if not the fear. Shion smiled at him and crossed the room to his side, and he gingerly helped Nezumi recline against the gurney. The bed was halfway propped up between lying and sitting, enough that the patient could swallow medication and water but not so much that he would have to support his own weight.

“Did they give you stitches?” Shion asked him softly. Nezumi nodded. “Don’t tear them out yet. Relax.” Nezumi did his best to seem relaxed, and Shion passed his fingers through his dark hair to soothe him. “How bad is it?” he asked over his shoulder.

“He’s doing pretty well,” the doctor replied. She had followed Shion to the room, and she stood at the end of the gurney. “There’s no intestinal damage, which was our main concern. We gave him stitches and a tissue-binding ointment that will speed the healing process and keep it clean. The muscles around the abdominal cavity will need some time to heal, though. I’d like to keep him here for a few days, just to make sure he doesn’t get into anything too strenuous. I’ve also prescribed an antibiotic - finish _all_ of it - and a decent painkiller.”

“No,” Nezumi grit out, and he looked up at Shion, desperate for someone to take his side. “No painkillers.”

“Pain increases stress, and stress makes your body heal slower,” Shion murmured back to him, still stroking his hair.

“Painkillers make you slower,” Nezumi argued, but he didn’t move away from Shion’s hand. “Someone just tried to have me killed.”

Something in those words made Shion’s stomach drop, and a sick instinct bubbled in his chest. The world was trying to keep Nezumi from him. More than anything, he wanted to hold Nezumi to his chest, keep him warm and safe, and destroy everything else. He wanted to guard him like an animal and fight for him. He took in a slow breath and chose his words judiciously.

“We’ll keep them on-hand in case you change your mind,” Shion suggested. “But I’ll shove the antibiotics down your throat if you make me.”

Nezumi hesitated, but he gave a begrudging nod.

“That sounds fair to me.” The doctor straightened her shoulders and dropped her hands into the pockets of her lab coat. “He’s had an infusion, but he needs to stay hydrated as well. Iron-rich foods, like red meat and spinach. Lots of rest. No motions that make him bend or twist for the next few days.”

“Understood.” Shion sucked the inside of his cheek and looked over Nezumi’s face. He was pale, and the skin around his eyes looked greyer. His lips were chapped, and a cut on his bottom lip had stopped bleeding. Nezumi - _his_ Nezumi - had been hurt, and now Shion was going to take care of him. Everyone in the room seemed to recognize that. “I’m going to stay here with him.”

The doctor, nurse, and assistant understood that as the “I want to be alone with him” that it was. The latter two left quietly, and the doctor tapped a small plastic bottle half-full of green capsules down on the table.

“Make him take these. Twice a day with food. Just press the button if you need anything.” She shut the door behind her.

A second of silence let the air in the room settle, and then Shion leaned down to wrap his arms around Nezumi. It was a light hug, careful not to push him into turning or straining against his stitches, but enough to hold Nezumi close. Shion pressed his cheek to the top of Nezumi’s head, and his fingers traced through his long, dark hair. After one more second, Nezumi reached up. The bridge of his nose pressed against Shion’s shoulder, and his fingertips dug into the back of his sweater.

“You’re not allowed to die.” Shion’s throat was full of salt, and if he raised his voice above a whisper, he knew it would break. So he kept himself quiet. “Do you hear me? You’re not allowed to leave me.”

He felt the bob of a swallow in Nezumi’s throat. “You just got me back,” Nezumi laughed quietly, not even a murmur.

“Exactly.”

Nezumi’s fingers gripped Shion’s sweater in tentative handfuls. His pulse quickened on the monitor by the bed.

“I thought they were after you, too,” Nezumi whispered. “After this morning, I thought there might be more of them after you. You have to be careful.”

“I will. I will,” Shion promised. Nezumi’s hair was smooth, and the light scent of his sweat was familiar. Shion turned his face, pressing his nose and lips to that soft, smooth hair. “It’ll be alright. I’ll make it alright.”

Nezumi huffed out something that sounded like a laugh, but didn’t quite fit. It was too sad. Too exasperated. When Nezumi murmured Shion’s name and lifted his head, Shion pulled back just enough to look him in the eyes.

Nezumi drew his hand up. His fingers brushed Shion’s throat, and then his thumb swept over his bottom lip.

The silver of his eyes wasn’t like metal. There was nothing hard or steely about them. They were pale and pure as starlight, with a light of their own. That light was so hard to see sometimes, such a quiet magnitude that most people missed it, their true value. Quiet. Soft. Beautiful. Framed by dark, long lashes. Fixed on Shion’s mouth, made more fascinating by the eye contact they avoided.

Both of them pretended to ignore the rapid beeping of Nezumi’s pulse in the background, but only for a moment. When Shion cracked a smirk, Nezumi scowled and couldn’t keep his face from flushing.

“You’re so cute,” Shion laughed under his breath.

“Don’t patronize me,” Nezumi growled.

The door opened without a knock, and both of them turned their heads, frowning at the interruption.

At the door, Torey stood in front of two police officers. Shion stood up straight, but his hand only dropped from the back of Nezumi’s head to lace into Nezumi’s fingers.

“How are the would-be assassins?” Shion asked dryly.

It was only half a second, but he saw the way Torey’s eyes flickered over the two of them. Their initial closeness. Their intertwined fingers. Nezumi’s state of undress, and Shion’s utter lack of discomfort with it. And it was barely there, but Shion saw the tiny flinch in Torey’s jaw. Torey sucked in a composed, professional breath, and he settled his eyes firmly on Shion.

“They’ll live,” Torey replied. “It’ll be weeks before they can walk again.”

“That’s terrible.” Shion’s voice couldn’t be flatter. “Do we know who they are, or who hired them?”

“We’re investigating it,” Torey answered before an officer could. “But there’s no evidence that they were actually working for someone. They might have just said so earlier to try and distract us.”

Shion narrowed his eyes at Torey, and then glanced at the two officers. “And they’re here to question Nezumi about the attempt on his life?”

“That,” Torey allowed, “and why he had an unlicensed weapon.”

Shion stared at him. “What?”

One of the officers spoke up. “The hospital staff found a knife on him. He used it against one of the men who attacked him, but it’s unregistered.”

Nezumi started to speak up, but Shion squeezed his hand tightly.

“I know the one you’re talking about,” Shion assured them. As if he would let Nezumi take an illegal weapon into his city. “Did you look at it yet? The knife is six inches, but the blade is only three and a half. It doesn’t require registration in No. 6.”

The officers nodded, satisfied, and both of them glanced at the back of Torey’s head. Torey’s face was impassive.

“Can I have my knife back?” Nezumi mumbled.

“They’re holding it near the front desk,” one officer told him. “We’ll still have to check it, but if it’s within the limits, it’ll be fine. But if a citizen wants to carry a weapon, they should get registered anyway.”

“Agreed.” Shion nodded. “We’ll be happy to get him registered after he gets out of the hospital.”

Torey forgot to hide his disgust for a moment. “He’s not even a citizen.”

“Then as a Committee Member, I’m sponsoring his citizenship,” Shion snapped.

“Then as a citizen, he can be put on trial,” Torey reminded him.

“Trial?” Shion barked a laugh. “What for?”

“Shion,” Torey sighed. “I know you’re...predisposed in his favor. But you have to see that he’s a suspect in Kazuo’s murder.”

Shion froze altogether.

Who knew that Nezumi had been asking questions?

“The fuck I am,” Nezumi growled, and he struggled to sit upright. “I just fucking got here. I helped you find him, I’m trying to _help_ you smug, corporate sock puppets, and you’re accusing me of--”

Shion set his palm on the middle of Nezumi’s chest, urging him to lie back down. Nezumi shot a cautious glare towards him, but relented, seething. When Shion turned his eyes toward Torey again, he felt strangely empty.

“Where were you the night of Kazuo’s murder?” Shion asked Torey.

To his credit, Torey did look caught off-guard. “What?”

“People are many times more likely to be murdered by someone who knows them than by a complete stranger. Nezumi and I were at home. The control panel in my apartment will report our two life signatures present for that whole night - that information goes straight to the security company connected to the panel, so I couldn’t possibly tamper with it - and the coroner said that Kazuo was killed between nine and eleven, while we were undoubtedly home. Where were you then, Torey? Home alone? Because I heard your footsteps through the ceiling at half past one in the morning.”

This was the first time Shion had seen true, undisguisable resentment on Torey’s face. His anger was a cold one, anger that frosted over his tongue and teeth and eyes, and in that moment, it was delicious.

“I was out for drinks with a friend,” Torey informed him with a chill in his voice. “I have the receipts from the bar, and witnesses.”

“That’s good to hear. Should you bring your receipts and witnesses to court?” Shion paused and tilted his head innocently. “Or should we wait until the investigation yields some actual evidence before we start accusing whomever we feel like?”

Many people blushed when they were angry. Torey just grew pale.

“Maybe you should try to help with the investigation a little more,” Shion urged him, “instead of hindering it. It makes you look very bad, if you’re trying to arrest the person who’s doing the most to solve this case.”

It gave him some pleasure to see the two officers glance at each other, wide-eyed and entertained. Nezumi’s pulse chirped at a nice, elevated rate. It was usually so slow and steady, a testament to Nezumi’s strong heart.

“Oh,” Shion chuckled, “and while we have him hooked up. Nezumi?”

Nezumi glanced up at him, his brow furrowed.

“Did you kill Kazuo?” Shion asked him plainly.

Nezumi’s heart rate slowed from seventy-eight to seventy-four beats per minute, the numbers on the screen for all to see while he calmed down from Shion’s speech. “No.”

“Do you know who killed Kazuo?”

Seventy-three. “No.”

“Do you have any conceivable reason why you would have wanted my coworker dead?”

Seventy-two. There were no upward jumps or fluctuations in their crude, impromptu lie detector. “No.”

Shion looked back up at Torey. He stared him in the eyes, smiling, and then his smile vanished. “Get out.”

Torey turned sharply, pushed himself between the two officers, and walked back down the hallway.

The tension in the air held until Shion looked at the officers and spoke again. “We’ll be happy to answer any questions you have about the attack. The sooner we find out who sent them, the better.”

They only had a few questions. Nezumi gave a full account of the incident, even if he halted repeatedly and glanced to Shion to make sure he was safe, that this information wasn’t being used against him somehow. After handing them a card with their office number, the police thanked them and shut the door quietly on their way out.

Nezumi turned his head, looking up at Shion with wide eyes.

“I think you just saved my ass,” Nezumi said grimly. Shion looked away to hide the warmth on his face.

“He didn’t seem very upset about you getting shot,” Shion murmured. “I think he was madder that you had a knife to defend yourself.”

“I know what you mean.” Nezumi was still for a moment, and then sat up, leaned over, and grunted with the effort it took for him to unplug his monitor. Shion stood up, aghast.

“What are you doing?”

“Don’t want it to flatline and scare someone.” Nezumi frowned at the cords and needle taped to his wrist, the former leading to the monitor and the latter to a hanging bag of saline. “Timothy obviously isn’t on my side, or yours. I’m not staying where he knows where I am.”

“For the love of-- Let me do it. Don’t just rip it out,” Shion pleaded. Nezumi snorted indelicately and held out his arm to him. Shion held the tube connected to the IV steady when he tore the tape off, and then he pulled the needle straight out, immediately engaging the safety lock over the point.

“You like needles too much.” Nezumi wrinkled his nose at the small bead of blood that welled up from his wrist. He pushed the bed rail down and swung his legs over the side of the gurney. “In the car, you said you got a stick of Kazuo’s data. Where is it?”

“Pocket.” Shion tapped the pocket of his pants. Without Nezumi having to ask, Shion pulled off his sweater and quickly unbuttoned his white shirt underneath. “Button-downs will be easier for you until your side heals,” he explained, and he pulled his sweater back on while Nezumi put on the dress shirt. It looked good on him, even if the sleeves were just a little short. Shion wasn’t used to seeing Nezumi in nice, clean clothes.

“Shoes,” Nezumi mumbled, and he pointed to a cabinet on the other side of the room. Shion went to it and pulled out Nezumi’s boots, and he set them on the floor in front of the bed. Nezumi stepped into them, and Shion laced them up for him, unwilling to let Nezumi bend too far and reopen his wound. When he looked up again, Nezumi was fussing with the sleeve of his shirt, trying not to get blood from his wrist on the white fabric. Shion found a small bandage in the cabinet and stuck it over Nezumi’s wrist.

“We’ll be safer in West Block.” Nezumi was already starting to sound out of breath again, so Shion supported him with his shoulder when they stood up. “At least, while you look over the files, and until we’re sure no one else is trying to kill us.”

 

Shion insisted on signing Nezumi out of the hospital. The nurse was so reluctant and Nezumi was so anxious to leave that, in the end, it was more of Shion simply telling the desk that they were leaving. After collecting Nezumi’s knife, they stopped by the apartment only long enough to collect Shion’s laptop, Nezumi’s bag, and a hastily packed bag of clothes, food, and other supplies.

The drive into West Block wasn’t one Shion had made in a while. On the less and less frequent occasions that he went to the underground bunker, he would usually walk. It was a very long way to walk, but it suited the destination. At first, he would go on foot because he had used to go that way with Nezumi. As it became less and less convenient, it became more of a punishment for his own sentimentality. At the very least, it distracted him a little from the loneliness at the end of the hike, and it made him make sure he had a good reason for dragging himself out there. As long as Nezumi was injured, though, Shion would forego his self-flagellation. He parked the car beside the half-crumbled building and then insisted on carrying all of the bags down himself to save Nezumi the strain.

“When are you going to let me drive?” Nezumi teased him, stepping out of the car.

“You don’t have a license,” Shion answered politely.

“Yeah, but I’m a good driver.”

“Nezumi, you’re a terrible driver.”

Nezumi snorted and pressed a section of the wall, prompting another section to slide open. When the hidden doorway settled, the two of them stopped at the top of the steps for a moment, looking down into the underground hallway.

The architecture suggested that it used to be some kind of warehouse cellar, but Shion always thought of it as simply “the room.” The bunker. His and Nezumi’s eternal safe spot. When he thought of “home,” he imagined the underground room just as vividly as he pictured his mother’s bakery.

“Four years,” Shion mentioned with a soft, pained hopefulness.

“Four years,” Nezumi agreed, staring straight ahead and down. Shion couldn’t begin to guess his thoughts.

They had both seen the room since they had parted ways, but they hadn’t seen it together. That was the real test. They made their way down, Shion carrying three heavy bags and Nezumi walking with one hand on the wall for support. When Nezumi opened the familiar door at the end, they had another small moment of quiet.

Shion set down the bags by the doorway, slid his hand up against the inner wall, and clicked on the lights.

The first thing anyone could notice was the books. Rows of double-faced bookshelves, stacked with books of all kinds that Shion had lovingly straightened and organized. He had spirited about a fifth of them away to his apartment, preserving his favorites where he had room for them or time to collect them, and the room still seemed to be overflowing with books.

The baby grand piano greeted them to their left. Despite years of disuse and poor maintenance, it was only slightly out of tune and only had a couple of loose keys. It was nothing for a concert hall, but it was more than enough to warm a home. After that came the table, the oil lamp, and the sofa where Shion had once given Nezumi the wrong type of kiss. And then there was the bed tucked up against the corner of the wall, where the two of them had sprawled out beside one another, reading and talking for countless nights in only a few months. Shion had washed the sheets within his last few visits, and they were rumpled and unmade from where Nezumi had been sleeping in them.

“You know,” Nezumi considered slowly, and Shion glanced up at him. “The lights seem brighter, now that I’m back.”

“That’s because I replaced the bulbs and the generator.” Shion looked down again, and he brought the bags to the sofa. He sat down in the middle of it and left the bags on his right. “It was already old when we lived here.” He could feel Nezumi watching him curiously, so Shion avoided meeting his eyes.

“Was that you? Did you fix the plumbing and the water heater, too? The shower was exquisite.” Nezumi almost sounded like he was joking. “I guess you kept it from getting bulldozed and renovated like everything else, right?”

“I bought it.”

“What?” Nezumi choked on a laugh. He shut and locked the door, and then sat down on the vacant end of the couch.

“I bought the building,” Shion mumbled. He wasn’t sure why telling Nezumi this embarrassed him, but he had to keep his eyes on his hands and his hands rummaging around in the bag of nonperishable food. “This plot of land. It’s mine. I couldn’t let anyone touch it.”

“Damn you, stop that,” Nezumi huffed, and he pushed the bag away from Shion’s hands. “Look at me. You _bought_ it? I’ve been trespassing for the last week? Toby will have me hanged.”

“Don’t joke about that.” Shion tried to brush Nezumi’s hand off of his own, but Nezumi grabbed onto it. Like anything else, Nezumi made it graceful. He couldn’t seem to get enough of their fingers weaving together, and admittedly, neither could Shion. He wanted to touch his hands just to be sure he was there. Holding hands was somehow more intimate, just because it was Nezumi’s hand.

“Shion. What possessed you to buy it? How much did this cost you?”

“Not much, considering.” Shion scraped up the courage to look Nezumi in the eyes, and then he wasn’t allowed to look away. Nezumi was astonished, frowning and baffled and amazed without pretending to be otherwise, and Shion could only imagine the look on his own face. Sheepish and painfully earnest. “I love this place.”

Something seemed to settle in Nezumi’s eyes, like he had made up his mind. He pulled Shion’s hand gently, guiding him closer to him on the couch.

“Shion.”

Shion’s throat closed up. He waited.

“Welcome home,” Nezumi whispered.

Tears slipped past his eyes before he realized they were wet, still staring and dumbstruck.

“Oh, don’t cry.” Nezumi spared him a tender laugh, and he cupped Shion’s cheek in his hand.

“Too bad,” Shion argued meekly, and in the next moment, his hands were on the back of Nezumi’s neck and he was kissing him.

Shion didn’t have to learn how to give a welcome home kiss. He felt it to the extent that it was the only thing his body could do, holding onto Nezumi and making him know how much he had missed him.

At first, it was just the desperate press of lips. Quick, natural adjustments, gentle tugging, warmth. The fullness of soft flesh under slightly chapped skin. The quiet taste of iron on the cut on Nezumi’s lip. Shion was gentle with it, and he barely traced his tongue against it. Nezumi drew in an eager breath through his nose, and his tongue slid against Shion’s. Nezumi’s chest and shoulders rose into the contact, and Shion leaned into him.

Their last kiss, the promise kiss, hadn’t been this painful. Their last kiss had left Shion aching in his chest, bittersweet, incomplete. It had been all Shion could think about for days afterward, touching his mouth and trying to recall some of the sensation, the last they might have ever shared. But the welcome home kiss was the one to take the past four painful, lonely, horrible years and smash them open. The welcome home kiss was a rush, a release of every sad moment between the last kiss and now.

Every time Shion thought of another question Nezumi wasn’t there to answer.

Every time Shion had woken up, stared at the empty space next to him, and felt the world become a little less relatable.

Every time Shion had come back to this room, halfway out of his mind and shaking, and searched the bed for any lingering scent of Nezumi just in case he hadn’t breathed it all in the last time.

Every collective moment that Nezumi’s absence had left Shion feeling heavy and weak, undernourished, physically ill for the want of him shattered open, and Shion didn’t have to live in it anymore. The pain was over, and the relief was unbearable by itself.

Shion felt naked in that kiss. He couldn’t hide any of his feelings from Nezumi when he was holding him this close. His heart moved from desperation to relief, and then a tentative fear. Shion was gentle, not wanting to scare him away again.

Nezumi answered. His fingers curled tight in Shion’s hair, and he tilted away from the kiss. He took just a second to kiss Shion’s face, his cheek, under his eye. His nose. Back to his mouth.

He had missed him, too.

By then, Shion was shaking too badly to continue. He ducked his head down, wiping his eyes and sniffling.

“Welcome home, Nezumi,” Shion let out in a tiny, weeping mumble.

Nezumi brought his hand to his eyes quickly, but if he was crying, he didn’t let Shion see it. He pulled him close again, this time just to tuck Shion’s head down against his shoulder and hold him.

“You really did wait for me.” Shion could feel Nezumi’s breath against his hair when he spoke. Nezumi’s fingers combed through his hair, gentle against his scalp. “You acted like you didn’t. But you did.”

“I was trying to get over you.” Shion felt as though he were caught halfway through a flinch, stuck in an ache with tension behind his eyes. “I knew it was never going to happen, but I had to try anyway. I was mad at you for leaving me, and I was mad at myself for being afraid to wait. For thinking you might never come back.” Shion wiped his eyes with his wrist, scarcely pulling away from Nezumi to do so. As the words left him, like poison draining out, he could only feel more ashamed.

“I’m so sorry, Nezumi. I’m sorry I doubted you. I just needed you so badly. I can’t go another four years without you.”

That got Nezumi to fall quiet entirely. He took Shion’s hand, his fingertips cresting Shion’s knuckles, and he took a shaky breath.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. Shion’s heart stammered and started to freeze. Of course Nezumi was sorry. He couldn’t stay this time, either. He was going to leave all over again. But Nezumi continued. “I’m sorry I put you through that. I was scared of what would happen if I didn’t leave.”

“And what would that be?”

“That I would never leave. That I would never learn how to stop needing you. I was trying to get over you, too.” Nezumi’s lips parted, halted, and then he shut them and frowned at empty space. Shion stayed quiet, holding tight to his hand. “But I’m never going to figure that out. There’s freedom out there, Shion. There’s life and growth and so much to learn. It’s the whole world. But I couldn’t go one fucking day without thinking, ‘I wonder what Shion would think of this.’”

Shion couldn’t cry quietly like Nezumi could. Tears streamed, his shoulders quaked, and he hiccupped on sobs. “Did you think about coming back?”

Nezumi nodded. “That scared me the worst,” he mumbled. He didn’t wipe away Shion’s tears, but let him cry it out and held his hand. “I spent all this time thinking that I shouldn’t or couldn’t settle down. I was afraid of what would happen if we grew apart, or that I would miss out on my life in the rest of the world.”

Nezumi shut his eyes for a moment. When he leaned closer and pressed their foreheads together, his voice had softened and started to waver, and his fingers came up to cradle the back of Shion’s head.

“But this is my life, right here. It’s okay if I spend it with you, right?”

That was all he needed to hear. There was no way that they would iron everything out in one night, or even a year, but all Shion needed was to hear that Nezumi was willing to try. “I’d be okay with that,” Shion whispered.

Nezumi’s lips were familiar and safe, warm and nervous. Shion couldn’t even tell who started it, but as soon as the kiss began, he tilted his jaw into it. A hand ran down Shion’s back. His fingers traced back up under Nezumi’s ear. The tears had stopped, and Shion sank into the taste of Nezumi’s tongue and the warmth of his body.

Nezumi was there with him. Nezumi was staying, whatever it took. That emboldened Shion, and after another full minute of holding and touching, Shion moved his mouth across Nezumi’s jaw. His lips closed over the smooth angle of it, and when Nezumi tipped his head to the side and let out a quiet, pleased sigh, the sound of it brushed against Shion’s ear and sent goosebumps down his arms.

He couldn’t say how long he had craved this closeness. Nezumi dropped a hand to the top of Shion’s thigh, and Shion just smiled. He shifted carefully, and he slid that thigh over both of Nezumi’s to sit in his lap, facing him.

“You promised you’d teach me about this,” Shion whispered in a moment of daring.

Nezumi smirked up at him, and his hands traced down Shion’s sides. “Did I?”

“Mmhm. You said I didn’t know anything about it. That means you have to teach me.” Shion tested the waters. He kissed the side of Nezumi’s throat, and when that drew a small shiver out of him, Shion pressed his tongue against his quickening pulse. “I want you so much.”

Nezumi’s fingers curled tighter over Shion’s thigh, and he kept his head turned. His cheeks were dark, and he closed his eyes lightly. Even as his breathing deepened, Nezumi showed Shion a smile.

“What, making a move on me when I’m injured?” Nezumi teased. “You’re too cruel.”

“Is that a no?” Shion sat up straight again, his confidence shaken. “We can wait. Or we can be gentle.”

Nezumi let his eyes open halfway. He looked up at Shion in his lap, and his hands slid up from his thighs until his thumbs hooked into the waist of Shion’s pants, holding eye contact with him. He tugged Shion towards himself, pressing their hips together.

“How could I say no to that?” The lazy smirk came back to his face. It was so calm and subdued, confident and easy, but Shion could feel something under its surface. Nezumi was being patient. There was a much more aggressive, demanding side to him, and Shion wanted to play with it. Nezumi leaned up with only the slightest grimace of pain, and Shion thought that he was about to kiss him again. Instead, Nezumi took Shion’s bottom lip between his teeth. It was just a quick, encouraging nip, and it was enough to stun Shion while Nezumi’s mouth moved to his jaw and throat. “Tell me how much you’ve thought about this.”

Each nerve and muscle in Shion’s body seemed to wake up as Nezumi touched over it. The blood rushed from his head, and all he could do was let Nezumi do exactly what he wanted, letting his mouth brush over his skin. His head tilted back, and he absently found his fingers running through Nezumi’s hair.

“Every day,” he whispered. “Every day. I thought about how your voice would sound. Thought about where you’d touch me.”

“Where would I touch you?” Nezumi’s lips closed around Shion’s earlobe. Shion let out a quiet but undignified gasp, and his hips dragged forward. His legs felt restless. They needed to wrap properly around Nezumi’s body. That would feel good, he knew instinctively.

Shion gathered his thoughts for a second, and then he lifted his sweater off of his chest. “Here,” he mumbled, and tapped his own collarbone to avoid a more embarrassing answer.

Nezumi chuckled in his throat, and he bowed his head just enough to reach Shion’s collar. His mouth moved in a pattern. Kiss. Lick. Bite. Kiss, an apology for the bite. Each time Shion shivered with approval, Nezumi would bite slightly harder the next time, testing his limits, and then move to a new spot up Shion’s neck or down toward his chest.

“I don’t want you to do all the work,” Shion whispered. Nezumi’s tongue grazed against Shion’s nipple, and Shion sucked in a breath. His heart was tripping over itself, dizzy with the idea that Nezumi was touching him and tasting him so eagerly.

“No?” Nezumi glanced up at Shion, and he guided Shion’s hips back on his lap to access him more easily. His fingers dropped to the button of Shion’s pants and worked them open. Shion felt his face flush, but it didn’t feel anything but right. Nezumi had seen him naked before, between showers and occasionally changing in the same room together, but never touched him this closely. He had wanted this for years, and the tumble of his heart was of only the best kind of anticipation.

“No,” Shion agreed softly, and he lifted his hips as Nezumi pushed his clothes down on them. “I can do more. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

Nezumi snorted and pushed Shion gently, urging him back. Shion stepped off of Nezumi’s lap, standing in front of him red-faced, and Nezumi leaned back against the sofa. His arms rested over the top of the couch, one stretched out lazily and the other folded to let his hand run through his own hair. Grey eyes moved from Shion’s half-exposed hips, up his naked chest and the twisting red scar there, and then settled on Shion’s face, imperious and expectant.

He couldn’t stop his hands from shaking. Shion swallowed thinly, and he looked down to his waist when he pushed his pants and boxer-briefs lower. He stepped out of his shoes and the rest of his clothes, left them beside his feet, and raised his eyes to Nezumi’s face.

_I don't know how you would be able to get naked in front of your lover with a body like that._

Whatever Nezumi’s thoughts were in that moment, Shion knew they were different from his teasing comments years ago. Nezumi’s face was strangely smooth and serious, and Shion waited with his arms folded while Nezumi looked him over. His grey eyes were dark. His chest was rising and falling with a deep, quiet steadiness. His fingers twisted loosely in his own hair and tugged. Finally, Nezumi sat forward, skimmed his hands up the outside of Shion’s thighs, and looked up at him when he took hold of his hips.

Shion’s face flooded with warmth, and it only worsened when Nezumi shut his eyes and placed a warm, open kiss to his stomach. Realizing what Nezumi had in mind, Shion had to protest.

“Nezumi, I just said, I can do more instead,” he stammered, but halted in a gasp when Nezumi’s fingers slid over his erection.

“How can I teach you if I don’t show you first?” Nezumi murmured back to him. His hand was patient, barely gripping him, and his subtle control made Shion’s knees shake.

Shion couldn’t look away from him. He had never seen Nezumi’s face quite from this angle, the slope of his nose, the length of his eyelashes against his cheekbones. He had never seen that sultry expression in his eyes, or that shade of pink dusted over his skin. Shion’s hands tangled lightly in Nezumi’s hair, and Nezumi waited until Shion gave him a small nod before he smiled crookedly, bowed his head further, and kissed the side of his cock.

Nezumi made Shion stay standing. That made it more difficult, with the way his knees weakened and that all he wanted to do was lie down and moan. But Nezumi seemed to get some satisfaction from making Shion struggle. When Shion’s nails scraped against the back of his neck, Nezumi’s mouth smirked against Shion’s skin, and when he dragged his tongue up to the tip of his cock, he rewarded Shion’s groan with a croon and a kiss.

“Tell me everything,” Nezumi bade him. He looked up at Shion, silently demanding that he watch his mouth move over him so lewdly. His fingers held Shion by the base, and Nezumi’s tongue licked up beads of Shion’s overeager precome. “Tell me what you thought about. What you want.”

This was overwhelming. Nezumi’s voice was a low purr, right against his nerves, and his words were embarrassing enough for Shion to bring up one hand to his face to hide it. At the same time, he knew that Nezumi was doing him a favor. Nezumi was doing this because he wanted to make Shion feel good, and he was asking what he wanted so he could make Shion happy. But it was still embarrassing.

“Let me get you started,” Nezumi whispered. His hand gave him a slow pump, ensuring that Shion was fully hard, and he nuzzled his cheek against Shion like nothing could bring him more pleasure. “Do you want me to suck your cock?” Shion nodded, and Nezumi hummed impatiently. “No, sweetie. Say it for me.”

Shion had to cover his eyes with his hand. His heartbeat could have shaken his whole body. “I want you to suck my cock,” he mumbled. His face was burning. His blush reached halfway down his chest.

“Good boy,” Nezumi murmured, and Shion felt his lips wrap around the very tip of him. Shion’s mouth opened in a startled sigh, and his hand clenched tighter in Nezumi’s hair. Slowly, Nezumi leaned forward, adding pressure with his lips, tongue, and the inside of his cheeks. He was slick and hot and delicate, nothing like Shion’s hand. On the way back up, Nezumi let his mouth pop off of Shion’s cock, and he returned to kissing and licking him. “Keep going, darling.”

“I want you,” Shion breathed back impulsively. He just needed to feel his mouth again. “I want everything. I want you t-to… I want you inside me.” That was specific enough to earn Shion another slow, delicious slide of mouth over him. Nezumi slowed even more toward the end, and Shion kept going to encourage him further. “I want to do this to you, too. Everything, I want us to do it to each other.”

Nezumi groaned a soft, muffled agreement, and the rumble of his voice teased Shion’s flesh and made his toes curl. He was pumping steadily then, working Shion’s lower half with his hand, but fitting more and more of him into his mouth. Still, Shion kept talking because Nezumi was enjoying it. He had stopped hiding behind his hand, and he had all of his fingers in Nezumi’s soft hair.

“I want to hear you.” The room was bathed in a warm, rosy glow. The trembling in his knees had stopped, but it had travelled to his shoulders and hands. “I want to make you feel this good. I want to see you when you feel good.”

Nezumi rewarded him with each confession. He bobbed his head, giving him deep thrusts with his mouth, and on the backstroke, he added more suction with his hollowed cheeks. He worked smoothly, and he took cues from Shion’s gasps and the twitches of his fingers. When he seemed to realize how much Shion liked his tongue, he used more tongue. When he changed the angle of his thrusts and didn’t get the feedback he wanted, he found a better angle. The drag of his pink lips over Shion’s shaft was nothing less than breathtaking.

“That’s so good,” Shion whispered. “You’re so good to me, Nezumi. I wanna hear you say my name when I do this to you.” Shion’s words stopped with a hiss and a thick groan, and he tugged harder on Nezumi’s hair. “N-Nezumi, I’m-- fuck,” he choked.

Nezumi pulled his mouth off of Shion, sucked two of his own fingers, and then took Shion back into his lips. This time was too much. Nezumi pushed further, taking Shion completely into his mouth and to the back of his throat, and his two slick fingers slipped further behind. They rubbed over him, and one had the audacity to push inside of Shion to the first knuckle.

Shion gave a short cry and an involuntary jerk of his hips, and every part of his body tightened and drew up. His breath caught in the top corners of his lungs. The sharp warmth buzzing in his nerves burst, and when he came, Nezumi had to hold Shion’s hips steady with his hand to keep him from fucking his face too roughly.

Nezumi swallowed all of him, and then he sucked him a little longer to clean him. Shion whined in his throat when the stimulation was too much, and Nezumi pulled back, panting and gazing up at him.

Out of breath, Shion loosened his fingers and stroked Nezumi’s hair gently from his forehead. When their eyes met, Nezumi smiled and even looked a little nervous, and he leaned in to kiss Shion’s hip bones and stomach.

“That was perfect.” Shion lowered one hand, and he cupped Nezumi’s jaw, stroking his cheek with his thumb. “What’s wrong?”

“Haven’t done that in a long time,” Nezumi admitted. Shion crouched down, knees more unsteady than ever, and he drew Nezumi into a deep kiss. Nezumi was sure to let Shion taste his tongue, along with the bitter tang of his own seed.

“It was perfect. You’re perfect.” Shion’s lips bumped against Nezumi’s while he whispered to him. He reached up to Nezumi’s collar, and he unbuttoned his shirt from Nezumi’s chest quickly. “Come to bed with me. Let me be good to you.”

Nezumi let out another small, breathless laugh, and he stroked Shion’s hair out of his eyes. “You’ve gotten so sexy, you know that?”

That was enough to shut Shion up and make him glow with pride. He slipped the shirt off Nezumi’s shoulders, and he took a moment to indulge himself. He let his hands move down the middle of Nezumi’s chest, touching him just to feel the shapes of rib and muscle. He was tired and content from one orgasm, but not satisfied. Not fully. He had been waiting too long for this to finish once and be done. Nevertheless, his fingers slowed, tracing the edge of the bandage taped over Nezumi’s left side.

“You’ll let me know if it hurts too much, right?” Shion looked up to Nezumi, furrowing his brows. Nezumi’s lip quirked up on one side.

“I will,” Nezumi replied. “But if you spend all night asking ‘are you okay’ and ‘does it hurt,’ I promise I’ll kick you in the knee.” He stole another lingering kiss, reminding Shion of where his mind should be. Shion stood and helped Nezumi up from his right side, and he let out an amused huff. “Still, I think you’ve got to be some kind of sadist. I’ve just been shot, and you can’t keep your hands off of me.”

“I think putting up with you makes me more of a masochist,” Shion quipped back. Nezumi laughed harder and winced. He pulled away from Shion to stand on his own, likely just to show that he could. “Go lie down. I’ll be there in a second.”

“Taking charge? I like it.” Nezumi gave him a playful smile, and he took the few steps over to the bed. While he settled back against the pillows, Shion opened the large travel bag and searched through one of the pockets. “What are you looking for, princess?” Nezumi leaned up to try and see what Shion was doing. When Shion pulled out a small, clear bottle, Nezumi looked absolutely scandalized. “You brought lube? Were you expecting this to happen?”

“I was just thinking, we might be out here for a while.” Shion tried to shrug it off, but his face was flushed. Expecting, hoping, and wondering were different parts of the same set.

Nezumi snorted and made a sound of understanding. “Condoms?”

Shion swallowed and didn’t look up. “I...brought some, in case you want to use one.”

“In case?” Nezumi arched an eyebrow. “Do _you_ want to use one?”

Shion’s face burned. “Not particularly. I’m clean.”

“Also clean.” Nezumi settled down for a moment and bit his lip. “I’ve...never not used one before.”

“We can use them,” Shion assured him, turning a sheet of the foil packets in his fingers. Nezumi paused, but then shook his head.

“Don’t particularly want to,” Nezumi admitted. Shion watched him for another second, smiled, and put them back in the bag.

“Glad we’re of a mind.”

Nezumi grinned with silent laughter, and when Shion sat down next to him, he took the bottle from his hand. “So tell me,” he crowed. “Why is the bottle half empty?”

“Because I pour some down the sink every morning, obviously.” Shion scowled, and Nezumi only delighted in his embarrassment.

“Oh, do tell.”

“It’s been a lonely few years, okay?”

“Honey, I’m not making fun of you,” Nezumi laughed, and he leaned up on his palms to sit up, leaving the bottle on the sheets. He reached for Shion with one hand and played with his hair idly. “I’m just _desperately_ curious about how you used this while I was gone.”

Shion had never become accustomed to talking about such private things with anyone. There was no one he wanted to talk with about it besides Nezumi, and now he didn’t know how to begin. He decided honesty was the best route.

“Toys,” Shion answered simply.

“Toys?” Both of Nezumi’s eyebrows rose.

“I have a few toys, you pervert. That’s how I use the lube. What’s that look for?” Shion folded his knees up to his chest defensively. Nezumi was watching him with a surprised, oddly restrained expression, biting his lips together.

“Nothing.” Nezumi cleared his throat and brought his hand back to run through his own hair. “That’s just...kind of great.”

“Wait.” Shion started to grin when he realized it. “Do you like that?”

“A little, yeah.” Nezumi glanced away from Shion and towards the side of the bed. That hint of bashfulness was all Shion needed. He smirked, leaned in closer, and touched his lips to Nezumi’s cheekbone.

“Do you like thinking about me touching myself?” Shion whispered once he gathered up the courage. He didn’t miss the way that Nezumi’s breathing deepened, so he continued. The words weren’t hard to find once he found the opportunity and confidence for them. “Is that what you think about when you touch yourself? Me, missing you so bad that I have to use a toy where you should be?”

Nezumi cursed through his teeth, grabbed Shion by the back of his head, and pulled him into a hard, greedy kiss.

Shion didn’t know the name of this one yet. He knew goodbye kisses, welcome home kisses, and now he even knew the slow, delicious ‘you made me feel good’ kisses. But with this one, he was struggling to keep up. Nezumi held him closer, more demanding, and pushed his tongue deeper into Shion’s mouth than before. Even when their lips parted enough for their tongues to touch cool air, the rough pace only made Shion hungrier. Nezumi’s tongue behind his teeth. Nezumi’s teeth on lis lip. Nezumi’s low growl when Shion bit him back. Nezumi’s mouth as a whole, chasing answers out of Shion that he didn’t know he had.

Ah. The ‘I need you’ kiss.

Through it, Nezumi had guided Shion to help him lay back on the bed. When he pulled back, Shion found himself propped up with his elbows on the mattress, looking down at Nezumi catching his breath. His dark hair trailed out under him to contrast the sheets, and his half-open eyes were locked on Shion’s mouth, his own lips parted and panting.

“Turn around.” Nezumi was quiet, confident that Shion would obey any instruction he gave him. “Knees around my head.”

Shion did obey. He shifted his body off of Nezumi, turned himself around, and hesitated before putting his thighs on either side of Nezumi’s head. It didn’t matter if Nezumi had gone down on him minutes ago; it was a compromising, revealing position, and it made his skin burn. With his hips over Nezumi’s face, Shion arched his spine to raise his ass up and bring his own face down to the front of Nezumi’s pants.

Behind him, he heard Nezumi mumble, “Nice,” and felt him kiss the inside of his thigh. Shion ducked his face into Nezumi’s hip and groaned, mortified.

He felt Nezumi moving behind him, reaching for something, and heard the click of the bottle opening. He reminded himself that he wasn’t going to let Nezumi do all the work, so he brought his hands down to unbutton Nezumi’s pants. He pushed them down gently, making sure not to strain Nezumi’s injury by making him lift himself up, and was faced with the full, hard shape of him through his underwear.

This was his fault. Nezumi was excited because of him. An involuntary, giddy smile tugged at Shion’s face, and he lowered his mouth down to brush over Nezumi through the cotton.

Nezumi hissed softly, and the shape of him twitched, growing harder. One warm hand cupped one side of Shion’s upper thigh, and he could feel Nezumi’s thumb where no one else had ever touched him, holding him open. Shion let out an anxious whimper, but he knew that he was just as excited as Nezumi.

“Ready, sweetheart?”

Shion nodded and mumbled consent, mouthing over the shape of Nezumi’s cock. His heart was in his ears, and when he felt the slick slide of a finger against his entrance, he shivered. Nezumi only rubbed against him for a moment, spreading the lube evenly, and then slipped the tip of his finger inside.

It wasn’t a terrible intrusion. Shion had practiced enough with himself that he knew what it felt like. The shallowness of the contact made him squirm, though, and he groaned softly over Nezumi’s erection. He was being gentle, and Shion hadn’t entirely expected that. While Nezumi pushed in slowly and pulled out again, Shion pushed the rest of his clothes down on his hips and thighs and then put his mouth to work.

Nezumi was deliciously quiet. As Shion kissed the head of his cock and massaged him slowly with his hand, Nezumi only let his breath hitch in small gasps. Shion could feel the tensing in his legs, the response through his whole body to the contact. His tongue was careful, practicing as he went, but the body under him seemed to enjoy it all. At the same time, Shion felt Nezumi’s finger pushing deeper into him, but not fast enough. Like he was afraid of hurting him. For such a rough person, Nezumi was amazingly soft-hearted.

“I can take more than that,” Shion urged him. To prove his point, he opened his mouth wide, and he took in the first few inches. Nezumi hissed through his teeth, breathing harder, and then Shion felt him pull his finger out. A second later, two of them pushed into him, all the way in, smooth and direct.

That was the stretch he wanted. It reached down to his toes and up his spine. Shion gasped through his nose, and when Nezumi arched his fingers and pressed toward the front of his body, Shion’s hips bucked and he whimpered over the cock in his mouth.

“That’s it.” He could hear the grin in Nezumi’s whispered tone. “That’s so good, Shion. Keep going.” His fingers moved apart and introduced an entirely new sensation to Shion’s body.

His toys were simple. Simple shapes, quality materials. One of them vibrated. But it was always Shion controlling them. It had always been his hand, his intentions, his own impulse before the decisive actions, and then the feeling. Then the response. As long as Nezumi was touching him, he felt his own response first. He had no way to brace himself for what he would feel next, not knowing exactly where it would be. It was entirely different when another person was touching him. Shion’s spine bowed involuntarily, greedily exposing more of himself to Nezumi, and he pushed his mouth further over him.

Nezumi groaned when he hit the back of Shion’s throat, and Shion felt the slightest push from Nezumi’s hips. His heels were pushing into the mattress, but he was trying so hard to stay still and behave so Shion could work. He was making Nezumi feel that good already. Shion hummed with pride and pleasure, and he minded his teeth when he bobbed his head. The taste of Nezumi’s precome filled his mouth, and he let himself drool over him. He had to be wet and sloppy for what was coming next.

It seemed like Nezumi had to turn this into a contest, though. Shion felt him kiss his thigh again, lingering and warm, and push a third finger into him. When Shion didn’t show any signs of pain, Nezumi bit the inside of his leg, and his wrist arched to thrust his fingers deeper into him.

Shion didn’t know how to brace himself against that. Nezumi’s graceful fingertips were reaching inside of him, stretching him open, tapping against his front so hard that Shion was dripping precome onto the chest below him, and he didn’t know how to take it. His only safe bet was to pull his mouth off of Nezumi, bow his head down against the top of his thigh, and try to keep from keening too loudly.

“You sound so sweet,” Nezumi purred against the spot he’d bitten. His fingers slowed, and Shion felt the slickness on them spreading inside of him. “My sweet boy. Did you already practice for me? What do you need?”

“You, you, you.” Shion could scarcely breathe. “Need you. I’m ready, I’m so ready.”

Nezumi chuckled, and he pulled his fingers out of him. He rubbed a little more lube over Shion’s entrance, and then he relaxed under him. “Then go for it.”

Shion shifted off of Nezumi, his movements looser and more awkward than before. He pushed Nezumi’s clothes lower, and Nezumi kicked them all off of the bed, as if there was some significance to being properly naked for their first time. When Shion came back around to straddle Nezumi’s hips, he saw the way he was watching him.

Nezumi smiled up at him. His hands settled onto Shion’s thighs, right at the top where leg met hip. He was watching his eyes so adoringly that anything he could have promised him, Shion would have believed him.

In that moment, Shion had to lean down once more. He held himself up over Nezumi, and he brushed a kiss over his mouth. Nezumi responded happily, sucking Shion’s bottom lip and licking the ridge of his teeth.

“You’re shaking, sweetie,” Nezumi breathed against Shion’s cheek. “Nervous?” Shion laughed under his breath.

“Nezumi, _you’re_ shaking.”

It was the truth. Shion was entirely steady - excited, but assured. Nezumi, though, was trembling like a clumsy fawn. He didn’t look like he was in pain. On the contrary, his face was flushed, and he was trying not to show how quickly he was breathing. Nervous, excited, and still trying to play it off. When Shion pointed it out, Nezumi bit his cheek and looked down between them.

“Go slow,” Nezumi whispered. “Gentle until you get used to it, okay?”

“Okay.” Shion swallowed and nodded. He kissed Nezumi’s cheek, rose up on his knees, and positioned the two of them with his hands.

Nezumi was hot and thick in his fingers and against his body. When Shion angled them together and slowly started to sink himself down over him, both of them stopped breathing for a moment. The head of his cock breached him, and Nezumi’s fingers dug into Shion’s hips. Shion rolled his body down over him, taking him in even further, and both of them moaned.

The fullness sent shivers up Shion’s spine. Once he was seated, he put both hands on Nezumi’s chest to brace and balance himself. Under his palm, Nezumi’s heart was thudding against his ribs. He was watching Shion intently, and his lips were parted around perfect panting, huffs of breath. They were connected. He hadn’t realized it was possible for two separate bodies to belong to one another, to fit so tightly and perfectly that he wasn’t even sure he had known what his body was before that moment.

Trembling, he lifted himself back up and sank back down. It took him a few thrusts to get used to the right motions, but once he found his rhythm, Shion kept moving. With each flex of his legs and arch of his spine, he rocked back down onto Nezumi’s length half a second later. The pace he made was slow and hard, and it had Nezumi clenching his jaw and groaning under him. Shion let his hand brush over Nezumi’s forehead, pushing a strand of hair from his eyes and caressing his face.

“God, you’re big,” he breathed. “How does it feel?” His eyes glanced down toward Nezumi’s bandage, ensuring that he wasn’t bleeding through it.

“It’s so good. Fuck, Shion.” Nezumi’s eyes were shut and his face was turned to one side, so Shion cupped his jaw and brought it back towards him.

“Look at me,” Shion bade him softly, even as the heat and tightness inside of him made him want to cry. He could feel the sweat dotting his forehead, the flush of his limbs, the full throb of their skin pressing and sliding together. Nezumi’s eyes slid open partially, hazy and dark. “Tell me how it feels.” He thrust himself over him harder, demanding only the best answers.

“It’s so hot in you,” Nezumi mumbled back breathlessly. “You’re so tight. You’re killing me, Shion. I’ve been waiting for this for years, and I can’t move.”

Shion hushed him gently, panting. “It’s alright. I’ve got you. Let me take care of you.” His hand traced down from Nezumi’s jaw to his throat, and something about that made Nezumi squirm. Curious, Shion passed his thumb back and forth over Nezumi’s pulse point. “What is it?” When Nezumi shook his head and refused to answer, Shion bent down. His hips rocked back at a tighter angle, making him quiver and Nezumi curse, but he kept his focus. His mouth touched on Nezumi’s neck, and he gave it a soft nip with his teeth.

Nezumi’s hips jumped up into Shion, and he whined. It was the smallest, most stressed sound that could have left his lips, and that seemed to humiliate him. He draped the back of one hand over his face to hide his eyes. “Shion, you don’t have to,” he started, but when Shion suckled and kissed the side of his throat, Nezumi moaned his name. Not a groan. Not a sigh. A full, perfect moan.

“Is your neck sensitive?” Shion grinned breathlessly.

“No.” Even as he tried to defend himself, Nezumi was starting to gasp again. Shion continued to kiss and lick the newfound weakness, murmuring praises to him.

“You sound so good, Nezumi. Such a pretty voice. If you sound this good already, how will you sound when I’m the one fucking you?”

That was too much for Nezumi to bear. He growled, grabbed Shion’s wrists, and turned them over on the bed, pressing Shion’s back into the mattress without pulling himself out of him. Shion let out a sound of alarm, and he immediately tried to check Nezumi’s side.

“Nezumi, you’ll--”

“Shion, let me live,” Nezumi rasped, and he snapped his hips forward into him.

That impact was everything they had been waiting for. Being acted upon, having their positions switched so that Shion could receive this attention, made each slide feel that much more acute. Nezumi didn’t pause for a moment, even when he pushed Shion’s knees up to his chest. The angle of his legs made the fit even tighter, and between the indignant moans pouring out of his chest, Shion cried out Nezumi’s name.

“What, darling?” Nezumi’s hair was falling over his face again. His eyes were sharp and focused, and his mouth had curved into a smile as he gave him another hard, targeted thrust. Shion hadn’t realized how broad his shoulders were, how strong his arms were, until Nezumi was holding him down. “What’s the matter?”

“You’re big.” Shion shut his eyes tight, and his voice was choked through his labored breaths. His unsteady hands pressed against Nezumi’s shoulders just to touch him. “You’re bigger than my toys. Feel it in my stomach.”

“Yeah?” Nezumi’s smirk widened, and his words were deceptively gentle while his body moved more urgently, the rhythm picking up. He put one hand down, palm flat against Shion’s lower belly, and added just enough pressure. “Where, right here?”

Shion lost his mind. He wasn’t sure for how many seconds it was, but he couldn’t be sure what words came out of his mouth, or whether he was screaming, or how much Nezumi teased him. He struggled to understand the room around him past the heat, the tension in his muscles. By the time he did manage to collect his senses, Nezumi was kissing the tears off his cheeks.

“Nezumi, I’m gonna come,” Shion sobbed. His body was trying to lift up off of the bed without his consent. Nezumi cradled the top of his head, gentle for only a moment before his fingers clenched in Shion’s hair.

“I know, baby,” Nezumi grit out. “I know. Come for me. I’ll pull out.”

That was wrong. Nezumi shouldn’t do that. Shion frowned, breathless and confused, and he was so close that his legs felt alive with electricity. In one impulsive instant, he gripped the back of Nezumi’s neck, and he stretched his legs to wrap around Nezumi’s waist.

Nezumi’s eyes widened. “Shion--”

“Inside,” Shion whispered in his ear. His fingers trembled where they wove into Nezumi’s hair. His heels pressed into the small of Nezumi’s back. “Come with me.”

Every day in Shion’s life came together, and they all led up to the way Nezumi’s shoulders shivered while he held him there.

“Shion, fuck, _fuck_.” Nezumi’s hips pressed forward. He managed to keep bucking his hips with what space Shion left him. He gasped next to Shion’s jaw, and he bowed his head only just further enough to bite down on his shoulder. One more cry bubbled out of Shion’s mouth, and the tension in his legs and stomach finally broke. It flooded through his bloodstream, his limbs, up to his eyes until his head fell back on the pillows. He felt the warm mess on his own stomach right as he felt Nezumi pour more of it into him.

Shion was warm. He was full. He was whole.

He mewled through the obscene pleasure, and he placed a sloppy, thankful kiss on Nezumi’s hairline. Nezumi let out an exhausted groan, and he lifted his face to catch Shion’s mouth with his.

Another one for Shion to add to the list: the ‘immediately after a shared finish’ kiss. Euphoric. Languid. Breathless, lazy, and mindlessly, violently devoted to one another.

Nezumi breathed Shion’s name again. The tip of his nose brushed against Shion’s cheek, and he let their lips and tongues slide together again. Graceful fingers ran through Shion’s hair, praising and worshipping him with that contact alone. Their bodies began to relax, sinking into the mattress when their muscles were too warm and loose in their sockets to do much else.

They were there in the room. They were home. They were together. The very thought of it made Shion grin, and he laughed quietly into the kiss. Nezumi hushed him at first, but then he started to laugh, too.

“I’m so happy,” Shion whispered. When Nezumi pulled back enough to look at him, Shion felt like he was meeting the eyes of the new side of his life. Informal as it may have been, he felt as though the two of them had just consummated something. Maybe everyone felt like that the first time they lay with someone, but no one else was as right for each other as Nezumi was for him.

“Me, too.” Nezumi grinned down at him, and he chuckled when Shion cupped his cheek in his hand. He turned his face and kissed Shion’s palm. “You okay?”

“I’m amazing,” Shion breathed. His thumb swept over Nezumi’s bottom lip, and he tilted his head to get a look at Nezumi’s side. There was a small spot of red through the bandages, enough to make him frown. “What about you?”

Nezumi barely glanced at his left shoulder, and he smiled. “I’m great. Don’t worry.” He propped himself up on his hands, pulling out of Shion gently, and he rolled over onto his back beside him to relax. He let out a long, contented hum and closed his eyes, but he left one arm open to invite Shion closer. Shion took the opportunity to snuggle up to Nezumi’s side.

“You’re bleeding again,” Shion admonished him quietly.

“Completely worth it.” Nezumi smiled wide, and he only opened his eyes after another moment, turning to look at Shion. Their faces were inches apart, next to one another on the same pillow. “What do you think? Worth it? Or would your politician friend have done better?”

Shion answered with a repulsed groan. “Hyperion to a satyr. Don’t even bring him up. You’ll spoil it.”

Nezumi hummed thoughtfully, and he let the quiet take over for another moment. “I always thought I’d make a good satyr,” he said suddenly.

Shion sat up, laughing. “Oh, shut up. You know what I meant.”

“Oh, I’m not the satyr?” Nezumi grinned wickedly up at him. “So that makes me some kind of god? How was your first time with the sex god, Shion?”

“I’m gonna hurt you,” Shion snickered, but he laced both of their hands together harmlessly. He leaned down close to him so that their noses almost touched, and Nezumi gazed back up at him.

His face was satisfied and smiling, not puckish or teasing anymore. Nezumi looked peaceful. Shion had only seen him this content a handful of times in their lives. His hair lay around his head in dark ropes, and some of it clung to the sweat on his forehead. His eyes were dark and lazy, and his mouth was red as a kiss. He looked so tired and victorious at once, an angel in repose.

“You’re beautiful,” Shion mumbled, staring right into Nezumi’s eyes.

He watched the progression of emotions there like the time-lapse of a blooming flower. Nezumi dropped his smile. His eyes widened, clearly showing the darks and highlights in the rings and flecks of grey. His ears reddened first, then his cheeks and nose all at once. Then his face folded into a cringe, and Nezumi turned his head to avoid looking at Shion.

“Shit, I almost forgot that you _say stuff like that_ ,” Nezumi groaned. He took one hand back to cover his burning face with it. “With a straight face, too. It’s horrifying.”

Shion snorted with laughter, and he bent down the rest of the way to kiss Nezumi’s ear. “Please learn to take a compliment.”

“You’re so _embarrassing_.”

“I know, I know,” Shion crooned, and he gave him one more kiss on the back of his hand. “Will you let me clean you up anyway?”

“I just want a shower,” Nezumi grumbled.

“You can’t get your stitches wet. You probably ripped a couple open, too. I’ll have to redo them.” Shion slipped off of the bed, and he only felt the full ache in his body once he stood up. He groaned softly and took a napkin from the travel bag to wipe the mess off his stomach and thighs.

Shion took a shower, and Nezumi had to settle for Shion wiping him down with a wet, soapy cloth just outside of the spray of water. After toweling off, they both dressed in some of the clothes Shion had packed, but both of them only slipped into pajama pants.

Nezumi had ripped three stitches open. Shion cut away the useless string, cleaned the wound gingerly, and restitched them with the help of a familiar medical kit on one of the shelves. He dabbed some of the same ointment from the hospital back over the wound, and he taped a new, clean bandage over the site. That done, he kissed Nezumi’s cheek and insisted that he take his medicine, lie in bed, and rest.

After a simple dinner, both of them were too tired to do anything but curl up together in bed. Shion turned off all but one of the lights, and he read aloud from a book of poems until they both fell asleep. His cheek lay on the open pages, and Nezumi’s hand rested over Shion’s wrist. Their little room was quiet.


End file.
